Workers’ unions in Laguna province staged a caravan to protest recent instances of unfair labor practice and union suppression, August 13.

The protest caravan began in the Laguna International Industrial Park in barangay Mamplasan, Binan and ended at the National Conciliation and Mediation Board (NCMB) Region 4A office in Brgy. Halang, Calamba. Workers from Philfoods Fresh Baked Products, Inc. and Kareila Management Corporation participated in the caravan, primarily to air their concerns at what they see as “worsening conditions for workers in the Southern Tagalog region.”

“There is nothing new for workers in Bongbong Marcos’ ‘Bagong Pilipinas’,” said Pagkakaisa ng Manggagawa sa Timog Katagalugan (PAMANTIK-KMU) spokesperson Mia Antonio. “Workers still face repression, illegal retrenchment, and other forms of exploitation.”

For Kareila workers, exploitation took on the form of being forced to resign despite rendering as much as 10 years of service to the company.

According to Liga ng Manggagawa sa Kareila Management Corp., KMC management gave a notice of termination to the 224 rank-and-file workers in its Binan warehouse last July 24, “one day after the Marcos II administration’s State of the Nation Address.” KMC justified the termination by saying that it has found a third-party provider, Asia Cargo Container Line, to perform its services. Workers were given up to July 31 to sign their resignation papers.

“[Should we not sign], the company threatened to withhold our separation pay and any recommendations to be hired by another third-party provider,” the organization said in its statement. Liga noted that most of the workers in KMC “have families and children in school,” and that the mass lay-offs would bring “hunger and poverty for workers and their families.”

“KMC’s actions to deprive us of our livelihood and our right to security of tenure is unjust,” Liga emphasized in its statement. “The challenge for us workers in Kareila is to band together and fight together against the massacre of our livelihoods at the hands of the greedy capitalists.”

Kareila Management Corporation operates wholesale and retail grocery stores, particularly S&R Membership Shopping. The coporation is owned by Lucio and Susan Co, who also owned Puregold Price Club, Inc. as a separate company before Puregold acquired KMC as a subsidiary in 2012.

KMC workers were joined by workers from Philfoods Fresh Baked Products, Inc., a subsidiary of Gardenia Bakeries Philippines Incorportated. Their union, Unyon ng mga Panadero sa Philfoods Fresh Baked Products Inc. (UPPFBPI-OLALIA-KMU), recently concluded Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations with their management last July 26.

However, union members continue to report cases of harassment from agents of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac). According to the union, Elcac agents have repeatedly visited the homes of union officers to “intimidate them into leaving the union.”

“Despite our hard-earned victory, they just wouldn’t let us alone,” said UPPFBPI-OLALIA-KMU President Larry Mallorca. “The capitalists at Gardenia will always try to block our union every step of the way.”

It took union members in Philfoods over a year for them to be recognized as a union and win their recently concluded CBA. All throughout this process, Mallorca and other union members were hounded by “police, soldiers, and other people” dissuading them to stop. Last year, Mallorca was one of the fourteen activists charged with violating Batasang Pambansa No. 880 shortly after the SONA protests.

Rhoel Alconera, was charged with financing terrorism, allegedly giving PHP 4 million (USD 69,884) to the New People’s Army. The charges were junked by the Batangas Regional Trial Court for lack of evidence last May.

Indicative of a larger problem

The August 13 protest caravan only “shows part of a bigger problem” faced by workers, according to PAMANTIK-KMU.

“This is only a small part of the bigger problem faced by workers in the region,” Antonio said. “There is a general crisis of workers’ rights being attacked, led by the capitalist class and aided by the Marcos Jr. administration.”

Antonio noted that Dutch semiconductor company Nexperia is another example. Last July 31, Nexperia Philippines Inc. Workers Union (NPIWU-NAFLU-KMU) voted overwhelmingly in favor of a strike despite attempts by NXP management to block strike voting.

NXP management responded to this by issuing a memo stating that all workers participating in the strike will be considered “absent without leave.” NPIWU-NAFLU-KMU condemned this, calling it an “attempt at intimidation, an insult, and a way to fool workers.”

“Our union is clarifying that there are no provisions in the law that allow management to declare striking workers as AWOL,” the union said in its statement. “Additionally, hiring workers during a strike and giving them double pay is another violation of the Strike Breaker Law.”

NXP workers are still dead-set on preparing for their strike, following massive lay-offs earlier in the year.

In the worst cases, these attacks against workers result in arrests or even deaths. August 13 was also the scheduled date for the hearing of Arnedo Lagunias, the secretary-general of Alyansa ng mga Manggagawa sa Engklabo who was arrested last March 2021 on charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives.

In the months leading up to his arrest, Lagunias was more than once,visited by elements of the Philippine National Police and encouraged to “clear [his] name” with the authorities. Lagunias repeatedly refused. That month, two labor leaders were killed and four were arrested as part of a larger series of operations against activists in Southern Tagalog; now known as “Bloody Sunday.”

The justice system has been slow to act on these cases. Of the four arrested, only one, Ramir Corcolon, has been released on lack of evidence. Corcolon was the secretary general of Water Systems Employees Response, organizing those in the public utilities sector. Another, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan Laguna spokesperson Mags Camoral, is out on bail. Lagunias and Steve Mendoza, the Vice President of labor federation Organized Labor Associations in Line Industries and Agriculture (OLALIA) remain in detention.

The story is similar for victims of extra-judicial killing. The Department of Justice dismissed murder raps against 17 police officers involved in the killing of labor leader and Bayan Cavite spokesperon Manny Asuncion last January 2023. Meanwhile, the identities of who killed PAMANTIK-KMU Chairperson Dandy Miguel remain unknown.

Regardless, workers in Laguna remain determined to fight for their rights. “We cannot give up on our struggle for decent working conditions, living wages, and human rights,” said Antonio. “We have proven time and time again that victory comes from being united in struggle.”