La Tondena workers commemorate 40th anniversary of historic strike
Amidst
concerns from some quarters that the vice presidential candidacy of Sen. Ferdinand
“Bong Bong” Marcos, Jr. would pave the way for the return to Malacanang of the former
dictator’s family, retired workers of La Tondena Inc., commemorated the 40th
anniversary of the historic first strike under martial law. About a hundred participants
to the strike gathered in a basketball court in Tondo, Manila last October 24
to keep up the legacy of the famous workers struggle.
“Beyond
renewing the bonds of friendship and camaraderie among La Tondena strikers, we believe
the lessons of the first strike under the Marcos dictatorship should be passed
on to the new generation. We are dual citizens now, senior citizens aside from
being Filipino citizens, but we have to impart to the younger workers the ideals,
hopes and traditions of the workers’ movement,” explained Benjie Roxas Jr., a participant
to the 1975 strike and present leader of the Tondo chapter of the party-list
Partido Manggagawa (PM).
In
October 24, 1975, some 800 workers of La Tondena stopped work and held a sit-down
strike to demand the regularization of contractuals and the reinstatement of
retrenched temporary workers. With the support of the workers’ community around
the factory and the solidarity of nuns, priests and seminarians, the strike
lasted for 44 hours before being suppressed by the wholesale arrests of
hundreds of strikers. But the strike did not end in defeat, as the then owners,
the Palancas, conceded to some of the workers’ demands, including the
regularization of 300 contractuals.
“But
the lasting legacy of the La Tondena strike was to break the terror of martial
law and defy the protest ban of the Marcos dictatorship. In the aftermath of
the pioneering and victorious La Tondena struggle, a strike wave swept Metro Manila
and the militant workers movement was reborn despite massive repression. The
EDSA uprising of 1986 built upon mass struggles like the La Tondena strike,”
argued Rene Magtubo, PM chair and former president of Fortune Tobacco labor
union, which like the La Tondena union was politicized by fighting for workers’
rights under the dictatorship.
La
Tondena was eventually bought by the San Miguel conglomerate and the union did
not survive the closure of the Tondo factory in 1994. The company was renamed Ginebra
San Miguel Inc. in 1987 and today two factories in Cabuyao, Laguna and Sta.
Barbara, Pangasinan make most of its products.
In
last year’s remembrance of the La Tondena strike, Gerry Rivera, president of
the union Philippine Airlines Employees’ Association (PALEA) and PM vice chair,
spoke before the retired workers. He recalled that “As I paid my deep respects
to the brave La Tondena strikers, I emphasized how strikingly similar their
demands and struggles were to the present fight of workers, including ours in
PALEA, under the conditions of trapo democracy instead of martial law.”
Arguably
the biggest labor dispute for the past several years, PALEA has been opposing
contractualization at Philippine Airlines and has garnered the support of the
Catholic Church among others. “Protesting PALEA members were forcibly evicted
and bodily carried too by armed guards and police from the airport in 2011,
just like how La Tondena workers were hauled in Metrocom buses in 1975. We dare
to win too like the La Tondena strikers and defeat contractualization
eventually,” Rivera ended.
November 3, 2015
