W poprzednim poście dotyczącym tego wątku pisałam o ostatnim, marcowym proteście pracowników Południowego Tagalogu, zatrudnionych w fabrykach i strefach produkcji eksportowej. Wśród protestujących byli pracownicy Nestlé Cabuayo, co świadczy o tym, że jednak nie do końca wszystko jest w porządku. Znamy już oficjalne stanowisko Nestlé (wszystko jest ok.), przyjrzyjmy się bliżej temu sporowi z punktu widzenia drugiej strony.
Noel Alemania, Przewodniczący Związku Zawodowego, UFE-DFA-KMU (The Union of Filipro Employees, UFE, an affiliate of Drug, Food and Allied Workers, DFA – Kilusang Mayo Uno, KMU) nie był zaskoczony odpowiedzią, jaką otrzymałam z Nestlé Consumer Services: „It is evident in their letter that they are continuously persuading the general public, the consumers about their real characteristic against their workers”. W wolnym tłumaczeniu: to oczywiste, że dalej będą ściemniać.
Dalej Noel przytacza w dużym skrócie niewesołą historię walki o związkowców o ukonstytuowanie i wdrożenie w życie przysługujących im praw. Wieloletnia walka, wbrew deklaracjom Nestlé nie zakończyła się jednoznacznym sukcesem. O czym świadczą dalsze protesty, takie jak choćby demonstracja z 22 marca, br. Fragment listu Noela zamieszczam poniżej.
January 14,2002 when most of the workers collectively decided to launch strike and barricaded the two gates of Nestlé Cabuyao factory to defend and preserve our job security, workers’ basic rights, our long won benefits (retirement benefits) which had resulted to the killing of our former union president Meliton Roxas in January 20,1989 and the termination of 103 union leaders in Nestlé Philippines. It was Nestlé’s arrogant gesture to exclude in our Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), the retirement benefits which was long been settled by the Philippine Supreme Court decision in 1991 as part and valid bargainable issue in our CBA with the management.(I attached here the fact sheet to illuminate the issue and what really Nestlé is to its own workers)
Exactly fourteen days where most of the workers stayed and barricaded the gates, sacrificing the cold nights, the heat of the sun, away from our families, without any salaries and striving for our lives that might be the next victim of forced disappearances or extra judicial killings. But we do not have any option but to do this for justice.
The strike is the weapon of the oppressed, of men capable of appreciating justice and contends for principle.
That was dawn, almost 2 am of January 28, 2002 when we were brutally dispersed by more than 1000 joint forces, in full battle gear military, police and goons of Nestlé. Many from us suffered serious injuries and were charged multiple criminal cases before the courts.(You can see in our videos posted in youtube and multiply sites how we frequently suffered brutally during dispersals) Those terror attacks were inflicted by the “Assumption of Jurisdiction”(AJ) order by the former Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) Secretary Patricia Sto Tomas which we found out later that Nestlé sponsored her trip to Milano, Italy and Geneva, Switzerland for her price of supporting Nestlé’s massacre against us workers. And due to that AJ, the bloodied hands of Nestlé of terminating us from work were systematized.
Yes, after January 28,2002 brutal dispersal, we can no longer exercise our basic rights as what the ILO conventions, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The Philippine Labor Code, The Philippine Constitution guarantees the basic rights of workers, “the right to strike”. The Regional Special Action Forces (RSAF), military, the combatant state forces are the mercenaries of Nestlé transformed the factory as their barracks and prohibited us from exercising our rights with the direct command as National Policy of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo regime. On August 2006, SC ruled again favouring us workers and ordering the management and the union UFE-DFA-KMU to go back to the negotiations and include the retirement benefits (the non-contributory) as valid CBA issue. But instead of respecting the decision, they used some of the new workers in Cabuyao factory to file Petition of Certification Election to dissolve the legitimate union UFE-DFA-KMU which the SC had consistently RECOGNISED.
Finally, March 2008 when the SC for the third time, ruled again with finality, for execution and in the “Entry of Book of Judgment” ordering Nestlé and UFE-DFA-KMU to resume negotiations and include the non-contributory retirement benefits as part and parcel of the CBA.(There is only one retirement plan that exist in Nestlé Philippines since it was decided before by the National Labor Relation Commission (NLRC) in 1989 and affirmed by the Supreme Court in February 1991, the non-contributory retirement plan/benefits as valid CBA issue.) After this final decision of SC, we filed “Motion for Writ of Execution” to the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) but instead of implementing the final decision, DoLE Sec.Roque denied our motion to implement the SC decision. He served as spokesman for Nestle sending letters to different organizations distorting the final decision of SC. It is so pathetic, knowing whose interest this DoLE Sec. is fostering. Without any hesitancies and deferment, DoLE released last January 2010 a resolution recognizing the new union Nestlé Cabuyao Workers Union (NCWU) as the sole and exclusive bargaining agent for the workers. This strategy of Nestlé is one of their pandemic approaches prelude to massacre the livelihood of workers, to bust the unions. Evidently, the genetic of NCWU is the intrinsic collusion of DoLE with Nestlé and undeniably guaranteed by Gloria Macapagal Arroyo regime for Nestlé’s haven. Calvary for workers, the cheap and docile labor, the workers condition of the modern slaves.
"Just three weeks prior to Unilever’s “shakeup”, Nestlé, the world’s largest food manufacturer, announced that higher raw material costs and inflationary pressures – forces beyond the company’s control – necessitated another round of plant closures and job cuts. Over the past five years the number of factories worldwide has fallen from 500 to 481, but the most aggressive attack on employment involved a dramatic increase in outsourcing across the company’s global production system, eliminating tens of thousands of permanent, unionized jobs. Yet the inflationary pressures used to justify these new closures and job cuts did not prevent the company reporting an 18.4 per cent increase in net profit and 8.4 per cent sales growth on 15 August 2007. On the same day Nestlé CEO Peter Brabeck announced the release of US$21 billion to shareholders through a three-year share buy-back scheme. Few would doubt that this massive cash outflow – and not inflationary pressures – is the real reason for plant closures, job cuts and restructuring.
source: “Nestlé to cut plants, products as prices soar”, Reuters, 12 July 2007 and International Journal of Labour Research 2009 Vol. 1 Issue 1 pgs37-37)
I hope that this will help in enligthening matters regarding our real situations. I also attached some documents and with links in it that may explain and support further the issue. Thank you very much for your support. Long live international solidarity!
Noel Alemania, Acting Union President, UFE-DFA-KMU
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Powiem szczerze – bardzo współczuję tym ludziom. Nie dość, że wykorzystuje ich pracodawca, to jeszcze, pomimo wyroku Sądu Najwyższego, Ministerstwo Pracy rzuca im kłody pod nogi (ujmując temat delikatnie). Więcej można przeczytać na związkowym blogu, o wymownej nazwie: There is Blood in Your Coffee. Jako ilustracji użyłam związanych z opisywanym prze Noela strajkiem zdjęć z tego źródła.
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