Thousands
Swarm Negros’ Key Cities on May Day
Farmers, students harassed by cops,
soldiers
By
Karl G. Ombion and Edgar
A. Cadagat
Bulatlat.com/Cobra-ans
Labor
Day, Protest Day: This scene in Bacolod City is replicated in major urban
centers as Filipino workers
continue their fight for decent wage, jobs and trade union rights.
BACOLOD
CITY - Labor Day in Negros – a region known for its tens of thousands of
seasonal plantation toilers (sacadas) and sugar mill workers – was marked with
resounding calls for wage increase, respect for labor rights, an end to onerous
government policies and foreign domination. Workers also called for the
scrapping of the Omnibus Amendments to Labor Code.
Like
their counterparts in Metro Manila and other cities throughout the country, the
workers also commemorated the 100th year of the labor movement in the
Philippines. On May 1, 1903 when some 100,000 Filipino workers marched to Malacañang,
the seat of the U.S. colonial power, and called for “Death to American
imperialism."
The
international workers’ day celebration was led by the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU
– May First Movement) and its affiliates and alliances marshalling 12,000
unionized members in the cities of Bacolod and San Carlos in Negros Occidental
and Dumaguete in Negros Oriental.
Rally
leaders complained however of police authorities’ lack of respect to labor’s
rights to commemorate May Day. Jerome Seballos, deputy secretary-general of the
human rights alliance Karapatan in Negros said units of the Provincial Mobile
Group (PMG) stopped truckloads of workers in Hinigaran, Bago City and in Silay
City on the lame excuse of searching for lethal weapons.
Many
didn’t make it to various rally sites. Farmers from the mountain villages of
Siaton and other towns in Negros Oriental were blocked by government troops from
going to Dumaguete. In Negros Oriental, students belonging to the Bagong
Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) and KMU in Negros Oriental were reportedly stopped
and interrogated in the cities of Dumaguete and Tanjay by soldiers and
policemen, Ronald Ian Evidente, secretary-general of Bayan-Negros Oriental,
reported.
Street
marchesIn Bacolod City, workers belonging to the National Federation of Sugar
Workers (NFSW) joined farmers, fisherfolk, the urban poor, youth and students,
women and Church-based groups in a march around the streets. The march ended at
the public plaza where a rally was held. Contingents of plantation and
industrial workers from other towns and cities of Negros also joined the march.
Guillermo Barreta, KMU-Negros spokesperson, said Negros workers’ major
concerns are wage increase, employment, the collective bargaining agreement (CBA)
and other union rights.
Unionized
state employees from the Confederation for Unity, Recognition and Advancement of
Government Employees (Courage)-Western Visayas, called for decent salaries, job
security, and full union rights for government employees. Courage leaders
slammed the "starvation wages of government workers" while few
government bureaucrats and executives wallow in excessive salaries and
privileges. The reorganization,
abolition, mergers and privatization resorted to by the government of President
Macapagal-Arroyo, is only intended to lay off 70,000 government workers, they
said.
Meanwhile,
the Catholic-run Social Action Center declared its support for workers' demands
for just wages and benefits, security of tenure and basic workers rights,
especially their rights to organize in the major industry (manufacturing,
agriculture and service).
In
a statement, SAC said that Filipino workers are already buried in poverty amid
the worsening economic crisis caused by the laws and policies of neo-liberal
globalization. Adding those who are jobless and the unemployed, more than eight
million workers face an uncertain future, it said.
An
overwhelming majority - 87.5 % - of Filipino families does not earn enough to
maintain a decent standard of living, SAC also revealed.
“What
can workers under these pressing circumstances do to uphold their dignity and
rights? Workers must unite and have one voice in demanding that they be given
opportunities to work and provided with just wages and benefits, safe and
healthful conditions of work, alternative livelihoods, and freedom from unfair
dismissal,” SAC added. Bulatlat.com
Back
to top
We
want to know what you think of this article.
|
