Union leader gets threats to life anew

Compostela, Compostela Valley—The president of a union of banana plantation workers here received fresh threats to his life amidst an on-going negotiation on the terms of their employment under the Fresh Bananas Agricultural Company, a subsidiary of Sumitomo Fruits Corporation-AJMR.

Last Saturday afternoon, December 16, Joel Cuyos, president of Nagkahiusang Mamumuo sa San Jose-National Federation of Labor Unions-Kilusang Mayo Uno (NAMASAN-NAFLU-KMU), received a text warning from a fellow officer of another union in Compostela, warning him that hired goons were after him. That Sunday, true enough, three suspicious-looking men were seen surveying the packing plant where he works.

Cuyos was president of NAMASAN when it held a 6-month long strike in 2006 when FBAC and Somitomo-AJMR illegally terminated them. In February this year, the company was forced to give the workers back their jobs, and both parties have been in negotiations ever since.

“I have no doubt of the intention of these death threats. I have received the same when we were on strike, struggling to be let back to work. Now suspicious men are frequenting my house and the packing plant while we are in negotiation for the terms of our employment,” he said.

During the first negotiation in September, the company said that the workers should apply in a labor-contracting agency called East Star to continue to work in the plantation. When the workers, knowing that their length of service will be cut should they agree, refused the precondition, the management instead asserted that they would be paid on piece rate. The workers disagreed with the arrangement.

Robert Lausa, spokesperson of Kilusang Mayo Uno-Southern Mindanao Region expressed alarm over the fresh threats against Cuyos. “It is most distressing that leaders are being targeted for genuinely serving workers in their struggle for wage, job security and democratic rights.”

Lausa observed that these events were also similar to those that lead to the incident of waylaying of union members and leaders in Compostela last year. While the workers of Nagkahiusang Mamumuo sa Suyapa Farm (NAMASUFA-NAFLU-KMU) had a pending case for money claims at the Labor Standards Division of the Department of Labor and Employment, their union president and members, who took security measures by accompanying their president every day to and from his house, were waylaid by two unidentified men riding a motorcycle.

“We took precautions when we heard Joel’s life was threatened because we want to avoid another incident like that of NAMASUFA ever happening again. Oplan Bantay Laya II has been targeting workers in the military’s anti-insurgency campaign. The AFP believes that in order to quash the rebels, it must also go after those it believes have links with them. Unfortunately, even with the military’s billion-peso budget for modern intelligence work, they have only managed to murder workers, farmers, students, professionals—the innocent, in short—who are struggling for a fairer, more just society.”

Lausa, however, believes the OBL II is miserably falling short of its expectations. “Until there are workers like Joel Cuyos who are willing to face danger in order for others to put food on the table and have decent lives, Gloria Arroyo’s anti-poor and anti-workers regime will constantly be met by protests from all sectors.”