NTF-ELCAC still Interfering with Labor – Labor NGO

On this year’s International Human Rights Day, we at the Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) is calling the public’s attention to the continuing interference of the despicable National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) in labor affairs.

It has come to our knowledge that the NTF-ELCAC hijacked a union in transportation and warehousing company Sun Logistics Technology Inc., which is based in Sta. Rosa town of Laguna province. The union has just recently sealed a Collective Bargaining Agreement with the company management.

We received a photograph of the signing of the CBA wherein uniformed elements of the Philippine military were present, together with the Laguna Provincial Director of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).

It will be recalled that the workers’ union in Sun Logistics was in the news in 2021, having been targeted by the NTF-ELCAC’s surveillance, harassment and forced disaffiliation drive. The union was formerly affiliated with the Organized Labor Association in Line Industries and Agriculture (OLALIA), the regional chapter of national labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU, May First Movement).

The president and other officials of the workers’ union in Sun Logistics were subjected to surveillance and harassment and were told to disaffiliate their union from the KMU or face certain consequences.

Various United Nations rapporteurs and the International Labour Organization have called for the abolition of the NTF-ELCAC, and condemned the government’s equation of unionism and labor activism with support for the armed insurgency, which the government further equates with terrorism. They have pinpointed the agency and the government policy as responsible for the numerous human rights violations against labor activists in the country.

The NTF-ELCAC’s continuing interference in labor affairs is nothing short of deplorable and alarming. The same goes for the DOLE’s acquiesence with, if not support for, such interference. Not only should the NTF-ELCAC stop its interference into labor affairs, it should in fact be abolished. We demand an immediate government investigation into this case and the implementation of actions to stop the NTF-ELCAC’s interference.

Even the deeply-flawed Labor Code recognizes workers’ right to the freedom of association – the freedom to form unions and collectively bargain, and to affiliate with whatever labor federation or center they want to join. Workers cannot truly exercise these rights and freedoms when guns are either directly or indirectly pointed at them, as in the case of the Sun Logistics workers.

The case of Sun Logistics illustrates the state of human rights in the labor movement. Workers are prevented from forming unions and when they do, they are threatened with retrenchment or worse. Labor activists face various forms of surveillance and harassment.

Since the Duterte regime, 72 labor activists have been extra-judicially killed, and the Marcos Jr regime has refused to do anything to attain justice for them. There are currently 25 political prisoners from the labor movement, most of whom were arrested under the Duterte regime, and the Marcos Jr regime continues to arrest labor activists and refuses to do something to free those in prison.

This International Human Rights Day, we in CTUHR affirm our commitment to the sacred duty of fighting for workers’ labor and human rights. We call on the Filipino workers and all sectors of society to unite with workers in standing up for these rights.