Despite the setbacks, however, workers in the Southern Tagalog region have continued to assert their rights and fight back. For Mario Fernandez and his fellow unionists in TEPWU, it meant meeting state forces head on. This meant actively challenging attempts to tag them as “communist sympathizers.”
The union was also able to clinch other benefits even in the middle of the pandemic, such as free boarding, free meals, door-to-door shuttle service, an additional P220 meal allowance, free testing, an additional 14-day sick leave for those who test positive for COVID-19, free face masks, face shields, and vitamins, among others.
By DEE AYROSO
“P/Brig. Gen. Vicente D. Danao, Jr. and Lt. Gen. Antonio G. Parlade, Jr. are profiting off fake surrender ceremonies while also discrediting legitimate organizations like Pamantik-KMU,” the group said.“They are even rewarding turncoats like Raffy Baylosis, who find ‘surrenderees’ from wherever they could so they could profit off them, by giving them a share in stealing taxpayers’ money.”
“In the five years that the union has existed, it has succeeded in the struggle for regularization when the workers went on strike in 2017, sorted out the union fund after the previous leadership left nothing, conducted multiple series of educational discussions to help the workers understand their rights, its leaders have studied how to best run the union in order to serve its workers, and advanced the struggle for livable wages and benefits through [Collective Bargaining Agreements].”