Labor group belies claims of industrial peace

Far from industrial peace, the country’s labor sector are experiencing a brutal all-out war waged by the present administration according to the militant labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) as work stoppages on the first 45 days this year resulted to 10, 410 mandays lost.

KMU Women’s Department Secretary Nenita Gonzaga belies the claim by Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye of an industrial peace that “continues to reign as the spirit of tripartism and voluntary arbitration keeps the number of strikes to a record low.”

Gonzaga explains that the fall in actual strikes is not an equation of industrial peace.

“More than so, it only illustrates a glaring attack on workers’ trade union and human rights as exemplified by inhumane wages, cases of assumption of jurisdiction, summary killings of trade union leaders, forced disappearances and attacks on picketlines.”

In nearly five years of Arroyo government, The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) documented 886 cases of violation of workers’ democratic and human rights. Assault at the picketlines account for majority of the cases (26%) followed by arrest and detention which stand at 13%. From January to December 2005 alone, 106 or 46% out of 228 cases were committed at the picketline – a sacred place for struggling workers – involving 1864 victims.

The CTUHR also said, “In more ways than one, this power of the secretary of Labor triggers the decline in the number of strikes, contrary to the government claims that it is the fatigue of strike and improvement of working conditions that discourage workers from engaging in concerted actions.”

The CTUHR likewise documented 43 labor-related deaths of workers and semi workers under the present administration.

“Likewise, the lifting of Proc. 1017 does not mean that crackdown against so-called destabilizers has stopped. Albeit it intensified, so much so that labor leaders who are advancing the interests of ordinary and toiling workers are tagged as destabilizers “stresses Gonzaga.

Gonzaga sarcastically said that the present administration is indeed serious in safeguarding and protecting the Filipino workers, "To prove a point, they are dangling the putting up of a maximum security jail cells with double concrete walls inside Camp Capinpin in Tanay town, Rizal province while accusing prominent labor leaders of rebellion such as KMU Chairman Emeritus and Anakpawis Rep. Crispin Beltran who is still illegally detained at the PNP Custodial Center , KMU Vice President for Political Affairs and Anakpawis Vice Chairman Rafael Baylosis and KMU Secretary General Joel Maglunsod.”

KMU welcomes the move by the country’s Roman Catholic priests and nuns in opening their convents to victims of political repression, “In dark times like this, where will the workers turn to? No hope in turning to Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas who remains mum on these attacks against the workers.”