Trade Union Struggle in a Semi-colonial and Semi-feudal Setting

Communist Party of the Philippines

2 May 1998 - Brussels

www.icsbrussels.org , ics[at]icsbrussels.org

Imperialist domination means imperialist-dictated economic and labour policies. It means the maintenance of the agrarian and backward character of the economy. There is no industrialisation despite all the reactionary NIC-hood hype because the economy's export-orientation and import-dependency engenders de-industrialisation rather than self-reliant progress. There is no alternative course for the people other than waging the national-democratic revolution with a socialist perspective under working class leadership. The trade union struggle of the masses of workers is an integral part of the people's struggle for national democracy.

The effects of the government's liberalisation policy are wage depression and retrenchment. Its policy on labour flexibility and/or contractualisation has resulted in reduced trade union membership and increased non-unionisable workers. Its program of privatisation and rationalisation means layoff, special economic zones, no-union/no-strike policy, the Herrera Law and criminalisation of strikes.

Some exemplary cases of Trade Union and Political Struggles

The US-Marcos dictatorship imposed a reign of fascist terror. There was widespread arrest of mass leaders, revolutionary activists, outspoken media people and even members of the ruling class who opposed Marcos. Congress, the Supreme Court and bourgeois media were padlocked.

Fascist violence was able to temporarily stop trade union struggles of workers. A strike ban was imposed, progressive federations like KASAMA and PAKMAP were declared illegal. There were mass arrests of union leaders and worker activists, and many others were hunted by the fascist police. But the workers and their unions overcame fascist instilled mass terror through open mass struggles and assertion of their democratic rights.

Within a period of only several months after the declaration of martial law, the workers began their mass struggles against fascist oppression. Blatant fascist oppression and economic hardships that the workers experienced as the offshoot of the imposition of martial law engendered working class militancy. Workers openly challenged anti-worker fascist policies in spontaneous struggles that were scattered and few at the beginning, but which, later on, became more widespread, grew in strength and rose to higher levels of co-ordination and militancy.

In the early part of 1973, workers of a textile factory in Canlubang, Laguna launched a sit-down strike while the workers of General Textile Mills (Gentex) in Libis, Quezon City launched a wildcat strike. Within almost the same period, 900 workers of the Pampanga Sugar Mills boycotted their jobs to protest the delay of wage payments. Secret groups of worker activists in the factories persisted in doing verbal agitation and distributing illegal revolutionary and anti-fascist literature, and consolidated and expanded their ranks.

In April 1974, workers of Lirag Textile Mills (Litex) in Malabon, Rizal picketed their factory in fighting for a wage increase and emergency allowances. Workers of Gelmart, a large garment factory in Paranaque, MetroManila marched to Bicutan to press for union recognition. Slowly, the number of workers and unions that have launched slowdowns, mass leaves, marches and other forms of worker struggles grew in number.

On October 24, 1975, hundreds of workers of the union at La Tondena, Inc. (Kaisahan ng Malayang Manggagawa sa LTI) openly defied the strike ban by launching their historic strike. During the strike's first night, soldiers and policemen attacked the picket line and brought to jail busloads of workers on the pretext of incarcerating them for violation of the curfew. Workers from other unions and members community associations in the vicinity supported the remaining La Tondena union members, and campaigned against the hiring of scabs. Progressive priests and nuns joined the workers, community organisations and students in protesting the jailing of strikers. Incarcerated workers that got their release returned to the strike and picketline. Underground newspapers spread the news about the strike. Religious workers also utilized the newsletters of various church organizations and religious orders to spread the news of the daring strike and the persistence of the workers at La Tondena. The fascist censors were not able to squelch the news of theis strike, locally and, to some extent, even internationally. The LTI strike persisted. Soon after, the Samahan ng Nagkakaisang Batilyo of Navotas (Association of dockworkers of the Navotas Fishport) launched a series of mass protests at the Fishport and at government offices.

In defiance of the strike ban, more than 73,000 workers, from 1975 to 1976, launched more than 200 strikes that reached factories, plantations and mines of North and South Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. In the latter part of the 70s, the US Marcos fascist dictatorship acknowledged the failure of its draconian strike ban. It issued decrees and orders that recongnized the legality of workers' strikes but continued to impose varoius fascist restrictions against worker strikes and the democratic rights of workers.

It was on May 1, 1981 that the KMU was formed. The workers, unions and mass leaders that were tempered and grew in influence as they waged trade union struggles closely linked with the antidictatorship struggle, formed the backbone of KMU. Six trade union federations and more than 100 unions participated in the founding of KMU.

The trade union fight for higher wages, full restoration of the right to strike, scrapping of preventive suspension, and other demands werre raised bij KMU. The workers' movement militantly fought the US-Marcos dictatorship's policy of maintaining a cheap and docile labor force as well as its deceptive program of "normalization". Local and sectoral trade union struggles and campaigns on the issue of oil price increases, the enactment of new reactionary labor lauws, the fake lifting of martial law and the sham plebiscite and presidential elections.

The close interlinking of trade union issues and struggles to national issues and struggles of the working class and the entire people engendered new levels of militancy and activity among the workers and raised their political consciousness. Increasing numbers of workers deepened their appreciation of the need for the unity of the whole working class and of the whole people against the fascist dictatorship.

Workers struggles took the form of expanding factory demands for higher wages and the right to strike. These were supported by sectoral and multisectoral campaigns of propaganda and protests. As strikes increased in number and the struggles at the picket lines intensified, the workers sought to garner support from a broad array of democratic forces and sectors and continually increased the mobilisation of workers for antifascist mass actions.

The 1980 nation-wide tally of 62 strikes which mobilised 20,902 workers significantly increased in 1981 to 260 strikes that mobilised 98,585 workers. The upsurge of strikes had begun.

In Central Luzon, the workers and unions at the Bataan Export Processing Zone launched a zone-wide sympathy strike against police repression of the strike at Inter-Asia Corporation. This significantly bolstered the trend for higher levels of solidarity among workers and co-ordination of factory strikes. The Bataan Export Processing Zone (REPZ) workers formed their local KMU Chapter (AMBA-BALA) and repeatedly launched co-ordinated strikes. By 1984, co-ordinated strikes were also being launched in Mindanao and in the town of Novaliches and at the Food Terminal Incorporated (FTI) in the National Capital Region.

The Struggle of Women Workers

1. Women account for a significant number of toiling workers in the export-oriented, import and debt-dependent Philippine economy. They are found mostly in the service sector, which is currently the biggest employing sector of the economy. In the manufacturing sector, they are mostly in the so-called top dollar-earners - garments, electronics, food processing - largely export-oriented industries and which therefore hire and fire women according to the demands of the export market.

Subcontracting and other forms of labour flexibilisation is also widely practised in these industries - leaving workers at the receiving end of meagre wages in exchange for long hours of tedious work, and excluded from the reach of trade union organising, as casualisation and agency-hiring increasingly becomes a mode of employment.

Women have had a long and militant tradition of struggling for their rights and interests. Among the first to organise unions were women in cigarerras or cigar factories during the Spanish colonial regime. During the first decade of American colonial rule, the unions in cigar factories were able to launch industry -wide strikes to raise wages of men and women workers in the industry.

During the Marcos dictatorship, the zone-wide sympathy strike against police suppression of the militant strike at Inter-Asia Corporation at Bataan Export Processing Zone in 1982 was the first sympathy strike since Martial Law, and strongly impelled a higher content of solidarity and a higher level of co-ordination amongst workers and their unions nationally. This zone-wide sympathy strike mobilised thousands of men and women workers from the various unions and factories to gather and link arms at the Inter-Asia picket line. It should be noted that many companies in the zone had predominantly women workers, including the union at Inter-Asia Corporation,

SM Shoemart is one of the biggest department store chains in the country. During the Marcos dictatorship, women workers were able to launch two successful and major strikes. Through the years however, SM Shoemart management implemented wholesale contractualisation and casualisation of its works so that at present out of its estimated 20,000 workers, only 1,731 rank and file employees are classified as regular workers and are therefore covered by collective bargaining agreements. The union has been unsuccessful in stopping management from implementing these schemes. But despite the diminution of its scope, the union was able to carry on with its militant struggles such as the campaign for an increase in minimum wage.

Under the Ramos regime of liberalisation, women's participation in trade union struggles has reached greater heights and intensity with the growth in strength of KMU and its allies in progressive federations. The formation of the Kilusang Manggagawang Kababaihan or KMK, a federation of unions from predominantly women workplaces from within and outside KMU and the formation of women's committees at the union, federation, regional and national levels of KMU have boosted the work of education, organisation and mobilisation of women of the working class.

The KMK, which is a member of the militant women's movement under the banner of GABRIELA primarily supports the trade union organising of women in different economic sectors, undertakes programs and activities with the aim of expanding leadership roles for women workers at the national, federation and union levels. It also seeks to forge an alliance that reaches out to women in independent unions and those outside KMU but are open to the concept of genuine trade unionism. KMK was also instrumental in the formation of women's committees of KMK.

Within KMU itself, work on organising women of the working class are being carried out in varying levels in the different federations. Among these are NAFLU and IBM, with the latter concentrating on organising workers wives who are encouraged, through various activities such as women's meetings, community or house-to-house visits, etc. to raise their understanding and willingness to support the militant actions of the union, consolidate their awareness on trade union and national issues, while at the same time providing a forum for articulating their gender-specific or domestic concerns in the spirit of mutual help and support.

The organisational venues for the education and training of working class women are already in place. With the growth and comprehensive advance of the trade union movement, we envision the broadened, strong and dynamic participation of women workers and wives from working class families in the defence of workers, interests and in the struggle for national democracy. At the same time, such further development in the women workers movement will add depth to the growth and comprehensive advance of the workers movement.

2. Women's participation in trade union struggles has reached greater heights and intensity with the growth in strength of KMU and its allies in progressive federations. The formation of the Kilusang Manggagawang Kababaihan or KMK, a federation of unions from predominantly women workplaces from within and outside KMU; and the formation of women's committees at the union, federation, regional and national levels of KMU have boosted the work of education, organisation and mobilisation of women workers as well as the work in working class families.

KMK, which is a member of the militant women's movement under the banner of GABRIELA primarily supports the trade union organising of women in different sectors, undertakes programs and activities with the aim of expanding leadership roles for women workers at the national federation and union levels. It also seeks to forge an alliance that reaches out to women in independent unions and those outside of KMU but are open to the concept of genuine trade unionism. KMK was also instrumental in the formation of women's committees of KMU.

Within KMU itself, work on organising women of the working class are being carried out in varying levels in the different federations. Among these are NAFLU and IBM, with the latter concentrating on organising workers, wives who are encouraged, through various activities such as women's meetings, community or house-to-house visits, etc. to raise their understanding and willingness to support the militant actions of the union, consolidate their awareness on trade union and national issues, while at the same time providing a forum for articulating their gender-specific or domestic concerns in the spirit of mutual help and support.

Party leadership in the trade union movement

The militant and sustained actions of the workers have been realised under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines. Furthermore, the party raises the consciousness of the workers from economic struggle to armed struggle as the revolutionary way to seek the overthrow of the exploitative system and to approach the fundamental problems of the working class and the people. Otherwise, their struggle would end up in economism and reformism.

The party clarifies that the struggles of the working class is a class struggle and that the seizure of political power through armed struggle is the only way and can not be achieved by their class alone. Hence, alliance with the peasantry and other oppressed and exploited classes is a must. Strategic and tactical alliances are thus, necessary.

Painstaking mass work is carried out. Party recruitment and party building are given primary importance. Branches of the communist party of the Philippines are established in the structure of the union. Ideological, political and organisational work and guidance to mass actions are undertaken by the party branch through the union structure. Recruitment of mass activists and party members is being done. The objective is to give the union the character of a revolutionary union.

Mass activists take formal studies of Philippine Society and Revolution and The Five Golden Rays aside from specific mass course on trade unionism. In the education for mass activists and party members, it is stressed that the trade union struggle is part of the open mass movement and a secondary form of struggle while armed struggle is the main form. Though a secondary form of struggle, legal trade union struggle is very important and a valuable complement to the armed struggle in the countryside. It is on this basis that the party branch is conscious of its task to recruit and send party cadres for the countryside work. Thus, the trade union is one of the wellsprings of red fighters and party cadres.

Errors and Rectification

However, in the 1980's the Party shifted from the strategy of protracted people's war into an insurrectionary strategy. Instead of solid organising, the style of work of majority of cadres was overwhelmed by sweeping propaganda work. Frequent and big mobilisations were launched; long marches were carried out; and nation-wide and co-ordinated strikes were implemented. Almost all the revolutionary forces were in hurry to achieve swift victory for the national democratic struggle through strikes and massive mobilisation in the urban centres.

The workers struggle intensified in the last years of the U.S. Marcos dictatorship. The workers strikes had increased rapidly. It took the form of co-ordinated strikes, factory belt strikes and even sympathy strikes in Bataan Export Processing Zones.

On the other hand ideological consolidation, party recruitment and countryside responsibilities were taken for granted. As well, party expansion and party building were neglected. Workers economic struggles were not linked to the armed struggle in the countryside. Since the second half of the 1980's the workers' struggles had declined and lowered their militancy. In addition, many comrades in workers support organisation were already detached from the basic masses of the workers. Socio-economic projects became the main occupation of many comrades at the expense of political and organising work.

All the above factors combined in the first and the second half of the 1980's to infect the party. Insurrectionism and economism further added to the errors of the party. Thus, the Second Great Rectification Movement was launched in 1992.

Through this movement, reformism, economism and insurrectionism were effectively combated. The quality of ideological and political education has now improved; solid organising and the organisation of party cells and branches are once again vigorously being done. Alliances are being established along revolutionary lines. Now, the level of unity of the entire legal and underground organisations is being strengthened. Cadres are being systematically deployed to the countryside to join the New Peoples Army.

Today, with the lessons and success of the Second Great Rectification Movement , the working class, the trade union movement under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines is far more determined and prepared to fight against the new forms of exploitation of the imperialists and its local lackeys. And there is clear understanding that the greatest contribution of the party to the international communist movement and the struggle against imperialism is winning its own national democratic revolution.