Strike One for the Workers of Hacienda Luisita

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

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.

In a report by Bulatlat in December last year, 89-year old retired sugar farm worker Ernesto Basilio said  that he, together with thousands of original hacienda workers, have struggled to own the land even before the Cojuangcos acquired the hacienda in 1958 from its Spanish owners.

Basillio said he was among the founding members of ULWU who staged a strike sometime in 1957 to force the Spanish owners to recognize their union that was then fighting for land distribution.

The Cojuangcos were only able to acquire the hacienda by using government funds on the pretext that the lands will be distributed to its tenants after 10 years, or in 1968.

The Cojuangcos, however, did not comply with its agreement with government.  It was only in 1980, or 12 years after, when the government of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos filed a case before a Manila court to enforce the 1958 agreement to distribute the land to the hacienda’s tenants.

In 1985, the court decided in favor of the government, compelling the hacienda owners to turn over the land to the Ministry of Agrarian Reform for appropriate land distribution. But the motive of the court and former President Marcos was suspect as the decision was handed down at the height of the campaign against the Marcos dictatorship. Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino was emerging as the moral force of the anti-dictatorship campaign after her husband, Benigno Aquino Jr., Marcos’ chief political rival, was gunned down allegedly by government troops in 1983.    

Before the hacienda land could be distributed to the sugar farmers, a people’s uprising against the Marcos dictatorship brought Cojuangco-Aquino to the seat of power, assuming the presidency of a revolutionary government in February 1986.

The turn-around

In 1987, the Cojuangco-Aquino government enacted the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL).  Part of the challenge to the new president was to fulfill its promise to distribute Hacienda Luisita to the sugar farmers.

As a land distribution scheme, the Cojuangcos implemented the Stock Distribution Option (SDO), a provision under the CARL that allows landlords to operate their landholdings as corporations. Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) was incorporated.  Instead of distributing the land to the farmer worker beneficiaries (FWB), they were made stockholders of the agri-corporation.  

The SDO also allowed the Cojuangcos to convert the agricultural land to non-agricultural uses. So far, more than 2000 hectares from the original 6,000 hectares have been converted to industrial, commercial and residential purposes.

At the onset, Galang said this meant lesser man-days (workdays) for the FWBs. In fact, during off-milling season, they were only able to work one day a week and were forced to incur loans from the management. After paying off debts, they are left with a measly take home pay of P9.50 a week.

But in the long term, Galang said the conversion of the land to other purposes negatively affected their rightful claim to the land. “Kapag na-convert ang lupa, mawawalan kami ng trabaho at sa kalaunan ay mapapalayas na kami dito sa asyenda at tuluyan na kaming tatanggalan ng karapatan sa lupa, (Once the lands are converted to other uses, we will lose our jobs and eventually be evicted from the hacienda. Our rightful claim to the land will be lost),” he said.

The Strike

Mahinay noted that the valiant stand of the strikers at the picket line has compelled DAR to act on the petition of the farm worker beneficiaries (FWBs) to revoke the Stock Distribution Plan (SDP) of HLI.

The FWBs filed the petition in November 2003, a month after retired and active HLI supervisors filed a similar petition to the same agency.

The DAR, however, did not act on the petition until after the strike was staged in November last year. After almost a year of investigation, DAR recommended in September to recall HLI’s SDP because, it said, the lives of FWBs did not improve but have worsened under the SDP. The investigation also showed that the HLI violated several provisions of the Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) regarding HLI operations.

“The FWBs were able to maximize the strike, persisting even after the AJ was issued,” Mahinay said.

According to Mahinay, there is an 80 to 90 percent probability that the land will be distributed to the FWBs.

The final decision will be handed down by the Presidential Agrarian Reform Committee (PARC), the highest governing body of the government’s agrarian reform program. It is expected to announce its decision on Nov. 19.

Decisive

The most decisive factor that spelled victory for the strike was the coordination of ULWU and CATLU, said Mahinay. 

“Had there been no coordination, one could have been used to weaken the other. But because of their cooperation, they were able to achieve maximum impact,” she said.

CATLU cannot do it by itself, the labor lawyer added, and it would have been difficult for ULWU had CAT workers continued to operate the mill.

The coordination was manifested in the recent negotiations between the CATLU and CAT vice president for operations Ernesto Teopaco. While both parties have principally agreed to a P15 wage increase, a P13,000 bonus and the reinstatement of all union officers except two (Medical Department Director Romeo Sarate and Adviser Renato Tua) who have voluntarily resigned.  But the union refused to sign a MoA until the issues being raised by ULWU have been resolved.

Mahinay believes that with the case still pending with the PARC, the Cojuangcos do not see an immediate resolution to the issues being raised by ULWU.

In a previous interview with HLI vice president for external affairs Atty. Vigor Mendoza, he said that the attitude of the company is still to “wait-and-see” before deciding on what to do.

Galang, on the other hand, said that in an exploratory talk with Teopaco on Oct. 22, he had asked if the HLI management would resume operations. “Ang sagot lang sa amin ay puro ‘I don’t know,’ (His reply was I don’t know)” he said.

Mahinay said that although the peripheral issues being raised by ULWU concerning unpaid wages and benefits could still be resolved, the strike could not be lifted unless management categorically states whether it will resume operations of the plantation or not.

Moreover, the labor lawyer said, the issues being raised by ULWU regarding wages and benefits will be rendered moot and academic once the agrarian issue is settled.

“If this is the case, then this would still take long. And the Cojuangcos know that,” she said.

In the face of the unresolved agrarian issue, Mahinay said, the Cojuangcos wanted to immediately operate the mill.

“Gigil na gigil na silang buksan ang mill kasi kabyawan na. If CAT does not operate now, yung mga planters will have their canes milled in Pampanga and the Cojuangcos will continue to lose business, (The Cojuangcos are hell-bent on operating the mill because it is already milling season.  If CAT does not operate now, planter will have their canes milled in Pampanga and the Cojuangcos will continue to lose business)” she said. 

But the Cojuangcos may have to wait longer, Mahinay said, because not even the murder of CATLU president Ric Ramos can break the resolve of both unions that they will only enter into an agreement with the Cojuangcos if all their issues are resolved. Bulatlat

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