In observing its 50th year: NAFLU-KMU Bats for Jobs & Justice

Veteran trade unionists from Kilusang Mayo Uno’s largest (and oldest) labor federation, the National Federation of Labor Unions (NAFLU), has momentarily left the grind of election recounts in their local areas from all over the Philippines to hie off to Benguet province in Northern Luzon and celebrate their fiftieth founding anniversary.

“In this day and age,” said Tony Pascual, NAFLU’s current General Secretary, “it is no mean feat for a militant labor federation to reach fifty and still look forward to more years ahead of serving the Filipino workers.” Currently also holding their national convention (up to June 5), NAFLU’s local leaders have joined hands too to collectively press for humane conditions, jobs and justice.

To date, NAFLU is the only militant labor federation in the Philippines that has withstood government onslaughts against unions and reached fifty years, shared Joselito Ustarez, NAFLU-KMU’s National President and VP of KMU for Luzon. He explained that since 1903, when the first militant labor center Union Obrero Democratica was established, they invariably fall prey to the state’s vicious attacks. These attacks include arresting and incarcerating labor leaders, swooping down hard on their offices and local unions, and spreading nasty rumors about the leaders and members of the militant federation. After fifty years of our existence, these are still happening now, said Ustarez.

In fact, before traveling to Benguet, busloads of NAFLU local leaders first visited detained Anakpawis Congressman Crispin Beltran in Quezon City. They have another detained leader, a regional coordinator from the Eastern Visayas, Vincent Borja. Borja’s arrest was a clear case of mistaken identity, said Ustarez.

NAFLU has had its share of terribly wronged labor leaders, said Tony Pascual. Their founding president, Felixberto Olalia Sr., was repeatedly jailed during his long service to the labor movement. He got ill and died as a result of being thrown in solitary confinement, at age 79, during the last years of Marcos’ dictatorship.

Rolando Olalia Sr., Felixberto’s son, a lawyer and chairman of NAFLU and KMU in 1986, was also brutally murdered. “In fact,” added Tony Pascual, “NAFLU has a long list of martyrs and heroes who were killed in the course of demanding more humane working conditions. In today’s notorious “culture of impunity,” NAFLU is bracing itself. “We are only after humane working condition, we’re calling on every working people to join us in pressing for jobs and justice.”

Why not an economic growth for the people?

Time and again, the de-facto government of Gloria Arroyo would gleefully report an economic growth, said the NAFLU-KMU leaders. They asked, why not make it for real? For starters, create jobs that can really provide for the economy and for its workers, and not just for its owners and shareholders. Pascual cited as example the experience of the thousands of mining workers from North West Luzon. “We’d topped the global list of exporters of gold and other minerals in our heyday, but look at the plight of the mine workers? Still dirt poor, while the banks and the capitalists are all rolling in profits.”

Pascual reiterates NAFLU-KMU’s call for jobs whose pay can help workers afford to live decently, and justice wherever their local unions are active. He called on the press to help expose and end the brutal military attacks on unions.

Aside from the strikes of the employees’ union of Lepanto in Benguet, NAFLU’s member unions in the strategic pineapple, banana, and palm export industry, semiconductors, garments, automotive glass, beverage and mining are all locked in fierce struggle for survival even as they’re striving to recover their eroded wages and trade union rights.