Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Volume IV, Number 13 May 2 - 8, 2004 Quezon City, Philippines |
LABOR WATCH Workers
Attacked But Undaunted President
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declared war against militant Filipino workers
“terrorizing factories” after 9/11 but, if anything, it’s the workers who
are being terrorized by capitalists and the state. Terrorized but not terrified,
and still fighting for their democratic rights. BY
SANDRA NICOLAS March
was a tense, violent month for Generoso M. Sasis, Jr. and his fellow workers in
Sulpicio Lines, the
second largest inter-island shipping company in the Philippines. That’s when
some 660 of them went on strike, paralyzed all but two ships of the belligerent
company nationwide, and were violently broken up by high-powered rifle-wielding
police and soldiers. They were also detained without food. In
the aftermath, 310 of them were laid off including Sasis, president of the Unyon
ng Mandaragat ng Sulpicio Lines Inc. and Solid Towage and Lighterage-ANGLO-KMU (UMSS-ANGLO-KMU).
Yet though jobless for over a month now, Sasis and his two dozen fellow workers
attending this year’s Labor Day celebration-cum-miting de avance for
party-list group Anakpawis are far from despondent. Like
all militant unionists, he minces no words in analyzing their situation: “Iyong
nangyayari sa amin sa UMSS ay parang nangyayari rin sa napakaraming Pilipinong
manggagawa. Talagang ang manggagawa at kapitalista hindi talaga magkakasundo –
kaya ganun at ginagamit [ng mga kapitalista] ang estado” (What’s
happening to us in UMSS is the same thing happening to so many Filipino workers.
Workers and capitalists will never really get along – and so it’s like that
and [the capitalists] use the state). He also says that their attendance
in the May Day rally shows that they are not demoralized and that “tuloy
ang laban (the fight continues)!” Attacking workersWhen
the most recent bust of the Philippine economy hit in 1997, heralded by the
so-called Asian crisis, capitalists were quick to exploit the situation. They
argued that since everyone was suffering, workers should show some solidarity
and place their demands for just wages and humane working conditions on hold.
Capitalists also claimed, patronizingly, that the workers would only put
themselves out of jobs if they pressed their “ unreasonable” demands. But
if capitalists pleaded a dip in their profits, workers faced far worse with
rising joblessness and collapsing real incomes. Capitalist greed pushed workers
ever harder against the wall and there was an explosion of strikes – and of
state fascism and union repression. The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights
(CTUHR) noted a six-fold increase in recorded cases of workers victimized by
rights violations between 1998 and 1999, from 1,323 workers to 7,647. There were
4,102 victims in 2002 down to a little over 2,000 last year – almost 90
percent of which were of assaults of picketlines. Overwhelmingly,
these assaults usually led by state police and military forces were
“legitimized” by being assaults on strikes declared “illegal” upon the
Department of Labor and Employment’s (DoLE) issuing of Assumptions of
Jurisdiction (AJ) or the National Labor Relations
Commission’s (NLRC) injunctions or restraining orders. Dividing workersYet
violent attacks on strikers are just capitalists’ last resort against
unionists determined and able enough to get as far as that. The way to the
picketline is a long and difficult obstacle course. It starts as early as when
workers apply for jobs with rigorous background checks by prospective employers
to screen those with trade union experience. In export zones, applicants are
even asked for endorsements from local government officials. Budding
unions and federations already face difficult organizing conditions to begin
with. Contractualization has become a pressing problem with workers becoming
merely transient or, at the very least, perpetually lacking job security with
their stay beyond merely months-long contracts completely dependent on the
discretion of employers. But there are also burdensome bureaucratic
requirements. Incipient unions need the authorization of the state with a 30-day
waiting period upon submission of bureaucratic requirements to the Bureau of
Labor Relations (BLR) – giving management time to maneuver against worker
leaders and divide potential members. Employers are even allowed to appeal
against them. If
a militant union manages to be formed, its key leaders are closely monitored and
at any time may find “management prerogatives” or “company rules and
regulations” invoked to get them laid off. Finally, launching strikes
themselves technically involves a procedure lengthy enough that management
becomes forewarned, with the union subsequently losing the critical element of
surprise. In
practice, the state hasn’t even restricted itself to passively making sure
that these rules are complied with and it has actively used its considerable
coercive powers on the side of management against Philippine workers. As it did
with the UMSS, virtually all strikes are declared illegal at the outset with AJs
and return-to-work orders issued. For one thing, this paves the way for the use
of military, police and even private security agencies to break picketlines. For
another, union leaders can be penalized heavily for promoting “illegal”
strikes. Strikes
are for all intents and purposes banned in the public sector and in export
processing zones. As a result of all these, the abstract right to strike
enshrined in the Philippine Constitution and the Labor Code is, in reality,
virtually non-existent with capitalists and the state coming down hard on those
workers who assert it. Fearing workersDespite
all these difficulties, Filipino workers have not given up their democratic
rights, whether in the factories or in society at large. In this they join the
rest of the country’s working people and together they are the targets of
rising state fascism. Imperialist crisis and the US “war on terror” are
driving a brutal campaign of repression. Workers on picketlines are violently
attacked with truncheons, clubs and water cannons. Some 44 members of the
progressive party-lists groups Bayan Muna and Anakpawis have
already been killed. Nevertheless,
the people are undaunted. UMSS President Sasis for instance tells how the laid
off Sulpicio Lines workers haven’t chosen to quietly skulk away. While he is
with a contingent attending the Labor Day rally in Liwasan Bonifacio in Manila,
there are those who’ve gone to major Sulpicio Lines ports such as in Cebu to
help in organizing efforts there. “Nag-aaraw-araw ang mga mobilisasyon doon”
(There are mobilizations there every day), he smiles. “Para sa amin, kung kumilos lahat at sa tulong ng ibang progresibong pwersa ay makakamit ang kahit ano” (For us, if everyone unites and with the help of other progressive forces, everything can be won). Fitting words on May 1, when the workers of the world unite in celebration. Bulatlat.com We want to know what you think of this article.
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