The Hacienda Luisita Strike Timeline

Posted by Bulatlat

June 6, 2004

Rene Galang, peasant leader in the hacienda, is elected president of the United Luisita Workers’ Union (ULWU)

June 7

About 100 elements of the paramilitary Citizens’ Armed Force Geographical Unit (CAFGU) are deployed in the hacienda

June 23

Central Azucarrera de Tarlac Labor Union (CATLU) Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) proposal presented to CAT management

July 19

start of CATLU CBA negotiations

Aug 26

326 ULWU workers receive termination papers

Sept 30

ULWU files Notice of Strike (NOS) for union busting

Oct 7

Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE ) issues Assumption of Jurisdiction (AJ) to ULWU

Oct 25

CATLU files NOS for CBA deadlock

November 6, 2004, 12:00 nn

6 p.m.

The strike begins, sugar mill operations stop. Thousands of workers from the ULWU and CATLU barricade gates 1 and 2 of the sugar mill.

Philippine National Police (PNP) attempts to disperse workers in Gate 1 of sugar mill using tear gas and water cannons from inside the company gates but fail.

November 7, dawn

Hundreds of police again attempt to disperse workers in Gate 1 and again fail.

November 10, 5 pm

DoLE issues AJ order, workers tear-up document and announce they will defy the AJ.

November 12

DoLE issues deputization order to PNP and the Northern Luzon Command (Nolcom) of the Philippine Army

November 11-14

Marathon negotiations between unions, DoLE, PNP, Nolcom are facilitated by Tarlac Gov. Jose Yap to avert violent dispersal. Hacienda Luisita, Inc. and CAT management do not attend negotiations.

November 14

DoLE orders CATLU workers to remove barricades and return to work; offers P15 daily wage increase and P12,500 signing bonus. Workers reject the order.

November 15

More than 300 police stand-off with 5,000 workers in Gate 1, try to bodily dislodge workers but fail. City officials are on the scene.

November 16, morning

Around 3 p.m.

Shortly after 4 pm

Union leaders went to the house of former Rep. Peping Cojuangco in Makati to negotiate but were rebuffed.

600 NOLCOM fully-armed soldiers and PNP, along with a V-150 tank, a payloader and four fire trucks arrive in Gate 1.

Soldiers and police kill seven strikers and their supporters, scores of others wounded or disappeared

December 8

Marcelino Beltran, peasant leader and former military officer who was a prime witness to the massacre, is murdered in his home in Sta. Ignacia, Tarlac

January 5, 2005

Strikers Jorge Loveland and Ernesto Ramos are shot at by alleged bodyguards of Rep. Noynoy Aquino in the picket line in West Gate

January 22

Nolcom press briefing declares Hacienda Luisita strike a “matter of national security”

January 23

Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) issues statement condemning the massacre and calling for negotiations to settle the dispute

February 2

First direct negotiation between union leaders and the Cojuangco family is facilitated by three bishops and Gov. Yap. At least eight negotiation sessions take place in February.

March 2

Last direct negotiations take place

March 3

Tarlac City Councilor Abelardo Ladera, supporter of the striking workers, is assassinated in Tarlac City. Talks stall.

March 13

At least 300 soldiers are deployed in the barrios in the hacienda. Scores of union leaders, members and residents are harassed and intimidated. Fear and terror descend on the hacienda people.

March 10

Aglipayan priest Fr. William Tadena, another supporter of the strikers, is murdered in La Paz, Tarlac.

March 17

Peasant leader and strike supporter Ben Concepcion is murdered in Angeles City.

April 22

ULWU holds general assembly at the picket line where they declare that as stock holders and owners of the value of the land in HLI, they will withdraw their shares in the corporation. A step towards SDO revocation and land distribution

June 21

ULWU declares organized “bungkalan,” (cultivation of idle land) in the hacienda to stave off hunger.  

???

DAR Sec. Nasser Pangandaman announces that Task Force HL has finished its investigation and is set to recommend revocation of the SDO.

July 27

DOLE orders the Cojuangcos to pay P8.8 million in earned wages for striking CATLU workers

August 11

DoLE issues writ of execution compelling the Cojuangco family to pay P8.8 million in earned wages to the striking workers, and orders DOLE to levy/confiscate assets of Cojuangcos

September 2

People in Barangays Mapalacsiao and Astuirias, two of the villages comprising the hacienda, block the construction of the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway Project (SCTEP) with their bodies.

September 5

Gov. Yap tells the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA), the government agency facilitating the expressway construction, and Nolcom to stop construction of the SCTEP until farm workers’ claims have been settled.

September 30

DAR announces its decision to recommend SDO revocation to PARC. A few weeks later, PARC sets one month revalidation of Task Force findings. 

October 15

Bayan Muna provincial coordinator Florante Collantes is murdered in his home in Camiling, Tarlac.

October 20

CATLU officers and management reach a tentative agreement to the resolution of the strike but union officers said the issues of the ULWU should be settled simultaneously

October 22

DoLE confiscates 8,000 sacks of sugar from the sugar mill to be used to pay the workers’ earned wages

October 25

At about 9:00 p.m.

Striking CATLU workers receive P8.8 million in earned wages.

CATLU president and Mapalacsiao village chief  Ricardo Ramos is murdered.