Reihana Mohideen, Manila
What should have been a straightforward collective bargaining agreement for a wage increase resulted in the killing of 14 people (including two children) and the arrest of 115 workers on November 16, at Hacienda Luisita, a 6000-hectare property owned by the powerful Cojuangco clan and the family of former president Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino.
Reminiscent of the arrogant rule of hacienda feudal lords under colonial Spain, the strikers were tear-gassed and gunned down by the army and police during a protest. This use of the military in a labour dispute is unprecedented since the 1986 collapse of Ferdinand Marcos's dictatorship.
On October 24, 327 workers, including nine union leaders, were retrenched at Hacienda Luisita. On November 6, a strike by the two unions covering the workers, the United Luisita Workers Union (ULWU) and the Central Asucarera Tarlac Labor Union (CATLU), began. While both unions were campaigning for a wage increase and other benefits, the ULWU also included more political demands in its collective bargaining agreement, such as a stop to retrenchments and the rehiring of the sacked worker leaders; and the scrapping of a stock distribution system and its replacement with land redistribution to the workers and farmers.
Pickets were set up at the two entrances to the hacienda. They were supported by hundreds of workers, farmers and the local community. The picket at the main gate, which was attacked, was organised by the ULWU.
Department of Labor and Employment secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas gave the go-ahead for the use of force against the picketing workers by a legal mechanism called "assuming jurisdiction" over the strike. She declared the strike illegal and gave an order to break the picket.
The AJ law, a relic from the Marcos dictatorship, has been strengthened by subsequent governments. It's not only the president, but the secretary of labour, who can give a strike-breaking order resulting in the massacre of workers.
The militant wing of the union movement is calling for Sto. Thomas's resignation, reinstatement of the sacked workers and for the repeal of the AJ law. The ULWU is planning to lay criminal charges against the police and soldiers involved in the attack.
The political establishment has united in its attempt to undermine the workers' campaign for justice by claiming that "outside forces" and the New Peoples Army were the instigators of the violence on the picket line. But if the NPA had been involved, cops and soldiers would have been killed or surely suffered some casualties. But there have been no police or army casualties. The backbone of the picket was the union members and their supporters, the families of the workers and farmers living in the community. The picketers were defenceless, thus resulting in the high number of casualties.
The workers' campaign for justice has also turned into a clamour for land reform. Satur Ocampo, a congress member for the left-wing Bayan Muna party, explained that "underlying the workers' struggle is the long-pending issue of land ownership. The workers were supposed to be owners [through stock ownership] of one-third of Hacienda Luisita but over the last 30 years their financial benefits have been reduced to an insignificant amount."
According to Rene Galang, head of the ULWU and president of the peasant organisation AMBALA, the strikers wanted a redistribution of the hacienda land according to the land reform program, instead of being stockholders of the corporation Hacienda Luisita Incorporated.
AMBALA points out that the majority stockholders, the Cojuangco family, control the company in a way that the farmer-stockholders got minimal and dwindling benefits.
According to Ocampo, the massacre of the strikers "[is an] indication of the difficult struggle of the militant workers movement. At play are the principles of globalisation, such as, contractualisation and labour flexibility."
Responding to the red-baiting campaign against the workers to undermine their struggle for justice, Ocampo argued: "There is also a long-standing feudal system of relations between farm workers and the land lords. Anti-communism is a well-entrenched bias amongst the landowners. They think that if workers are left to themselves, they can be easily dealt with."
Ocampo also pointed out that the ferocity of the attack was the ruling class response to "the build up of the militant people's movement for genuine agrarian reform and against their anti-labour policies."
Sonny Melencio, vice-chairperson of the socialist labour centre Bukluran ng Mangagawang Pilipino (BMP) also points out that "There are two issues to be resolved here. There is the question of land reform and the failure of the corporatist policies adopted by the ruling class to get around land reform. The workers and farmers are demanding an end to this and there is now a revival of the demand for land. The workers at Luisita want to wipe out the land monopoly of the capitalist class. Now it has become more urgent that the workers' movement support the demand for land reform.
"Then we have the demand for the rights and welfare of the workers, such as the repeal of the AJ law. The massacre is the chilling result of the AJ law implemented by the department of labour. What is also posed is the need for workers to defend themselves effectively in the face of such murderous assaults. More than ever the militant wings of the labour movement need to unite to fight these attacks."
The labour movement has launched a series of protest actions culminating in nationwide demonstrations on November 30.
From Green Left Weekly, December 1, 2004.
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