A triumphant picket line stands today in front of Gate 1 of the Central Azucarrera de Tarlac in Hacienda Luisita, a year after sugar mill and plantation workers staged a simultaneous strike that halted operations of Luzon’s largest sugar estate. Ignited by unfair labor practices, this one-year old strike has brought to the fore the hacienda people’s centuries-old claim to the land that is rightfully theirs.

BY DABET CASTAÑEDA
Bulatlat.com

Enduring unspoken hardships, hunger, a massacre and the murder of one of its leaders, the striking workers of Hacienda Luisita, the 6,443-ha. sugar estate in Tarlac (120 kms from Manila), stand proud as they observe their first year at the picket line.

Exactly a year ago on Nov. 6, around 5,000 cane workers belonging to the United Luisita Labor Union (ULWU) and 700 mill workers of the Central Azucarrera de Tarlac Labor Union (CATLU) went on simultaneous strike that halted operations of Hacienda Luisita, Inc. (HLI), the sugar plantation, and Central Azucarrera de Tarlac (CAT), the hacienda’s sugar mill and Luzon’s second largest. Both companies are owned and operated by the family of former President Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino of the powerful Cojuangco clan in Tarlac.

For labor lawyer Nenita Mahinay, the one-year old strike has been fruitful for two main reasons: first, it has rendered the Department of Labor and Employment’s (DoLE) issuance of an Assumption of Jurisdiction (AJ) inutile; and second, it has paved the way for the resolution of the farm workers’ centuries-old claim over the hacienda.

The AJ

Even before the strike could take place, the ULWU was issued an AJ on Oct. 7 after it filed a Notice of Strike (NOS) on Sept. 30. Union president Rene Galang, in an interview with Bulatlat, said that they were forced to file the NOS due to management’s union busting scheme.

A week prior to the NOS, 326 sugarcane workers belonging to the ULWU received their termination papers stating that they ceased to be employees of HLI effective Oct. 1, 2004. The terminated workers included nine union officers including Galang and union vice president, Eldy Pingol.

On the other hand, CATLU filed its NOS on Oct. 25 due to a CBA deadlock. Mahinay said the management only wanted to effect a P15 wage increase and a signing bonus of P12,500 against the union’s demand of a P150 daily wage increase and a signing bonus of P30,000.

However, it was the AJ issued to CATLU on Nov. 10 that proved dangerous.

“The management wanted the AJ badly not only to cut-cost by saving on lower wages and benefits but more importantly, to bust the union by eliminating its officers who are capable of leading and consolidating the union,” Mahinay said.

Mahinay, who is the lead counsel for both unions, said the management got what it wanted from the DoLE. The AJ issued to CATLU ordered the union to accept management’s offer and return to work. It also declared the strike illegal and ordered the dismissal of the union’s 35 officers.

The AJ also gave leeway for DoLE Sec. Patricia Sto. Tomas to ask assistance from the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to effect the order.

The AJ led to what is now known as the infamous Hacienda Luisita Massacre, the most violent picket line dispersal in the nation’s history that killed seven strikers and their supporters in the afternoon of Nov. 16.

“It is the belief of the capitalists that the AJ is their ultimate weapon against strikes,” Mahinay said. “After the AJ, however, the battle shifted from the negotiating table to the picket line.”

Galang, on the other hand, said the strikers’ assertion to fight for their legitimate demands was resolute and proof of this, he said, was their gallant effort to go back to the picket line on Nov. 18, two days after the massacre.

“That the picket line stands until today is proof of the principle that the AJ can be rendered inutile if the workers are only willing to sacrifice. Although it was difficult for them and they paid for it with their lives, the striking workers of Hacienda Luisita have proven the capitalists wrong,” she added.

The land claim

The most significant gain of the strike, Mahinay said, is that it has helped project the sugar workers’ rightful claim to the hacienda land and pushed the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to resolve the issue in favor of the workers.

Galang said the plantation workers of the hacienda have struggled for decades to own the land they say is rightfully theirs.

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