Workers at largest palm oil plantation on strike vs. wage freeze; Labor unrest from Luzon to Mindanao marks PNoy’s 100 days

Workers at the country’s largest palm oil plantation are currently on strike to assert their right to substantial increases in their wages and benefits. Workers of Filipinas Palm Oil Plantation, Inc. are pushing for a P130-P150 wage increase for the next two years, but the company’s management is stubborn in granting only a measly P4 additional wage.

Filipinas Palm Oil occupies more than 30 percent of the Philippine’s palm oil plantations, with 8,000 hectares of land in San Francisco and Rosario towns of Agusan del Sur. More than 1,000 workers, majority of which are contractuals, till the lands and process the oil at the plantation.

The management has also repeatedly denied granting 25 types of economic benefits, such as night differentials and hospitalization insurances, being lobbied for by the workers in negotiations for the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) since February. The CBA deadlock forced the Filipinas Palm Oil Plantation Workers Union (FPPIWU-NAFLU-KMU) to file for a notice of strike two months ago, but the management appealed for the Department of Labor to use its Assumption of Jurisdiction (AJ) powers to prevent the strike. The government quickly issued an AJ but the workers pushed through with the strike last Monday, October 5.

“The strike of Filipinas Palm Oil workers is more than justified. Their multi-billionaire owners, led by Dennis Villareal, squeeze out the fruits of their labor and leave them in drought,” said Tony Pascual, secretary-general of the National Federation of Labor Unions (NAFLU-KMU). NAFLU-KMU led a protest action today at the Filipinas Palm Oil’s head office in Makati City to echo the demands of their fellow workers in Agusan.

Pascual said that a single hectare of palm oil can produce more than four tons of crude palm oil in a year, which is five to ten times greater than the yield of other oil types. Palm oil is used as an ingredient in cooking oils, confectioneries, ice creams, soaps, cosmetics, and many other food products and chemicals.

“Aquino’s government, on the other hand, lubricates the greed machine of big corporations by being quick in suppressing workers’ strikes,” Pascual added.

“Just like its posturings in the brewing strike in the Philippine Airlines, and just like what the Arroyo government did to every strike, the Aquino administration is quick to bring out the Assumption of Jurisdiction weapon to force workers to work under extremely exploitative and oppressive conditions. The root causes of the strikes and disputes are really left unresolved,” Pascual said.

“The palm oil workers’ strike is a testament to the continuing unrest in the labor front under P-Noy’s first 100 days. If he will continue to stick to the same policy of wage freeze and suppression of workers’ rights, more protests will surely explode all over the nation,” #