It was a humid Monday afternoon. Cheers and jeers could be heard at a general assembly of banana workers in Brgy. Osmeña, Compostela, Compostela Valley of Southern Mindanao. The past month had been an eventful one of gains and setbacks. Soldiers and representatives of Sumifru Philippines Corporation’s (Sumifru) various service providers have been reported going house-to-house convincing striking workers to waive their membership to the union in exchange for job re-entry.

The meeting’s agenda was straightforward. The union was taking names, asking the general membership if they want to push the strike forward or to fold. This elicited sounds of incredulity from the members. “Are you kidding me? There is no way we are going to fold. We started this strike, we are going to finish it!,” said one woman, as if insulted that the question was asked in the first place.

A group of younger male trade unionists laugh in admiration. “We ought to be ashamed of these lolas! They are even more audacious than we are!” commented one male worker.

In the packed assembly area of the strike camp are sixty-something striking lolas who are banana packers of Sumifru’s Packing Plant 230, where around 95 percent of the workforce are composed of women. They are members of the consolidated union of Sumifru’s banana workers Nagkahiusang Mamumuo sa Suyapa Farm (Namasufa) (United Workers of Suyapa Farm) under local chapter Packing Plant 230 (PP230). They went on strike on October 11 following Sumifru’s non-compliance with the Supreme Court order to consider them regular workers and continued refusal to engage in collective bargaining negotiations.

The PP230 local union is famed for being a female union. It is among four out of eight local chapters of NAMASUFA led by women presidents; and, almost all of its membership are women.

A striking lola

In this crowd of banana plantation workers, it was hard to miss Gloria Delantes, 60, one of the strikers. Fellow workers refer her as “Blondie” for her blonde-dyed hair.  She is PP 230 local union’s treasurer.

Gloria knows the banana industry in Compostela inside and out ever since the bulldozers mauled the earth to convert Compostela’s rice and corn fields into banana plantations.

Previously, she and her then husband (they are separated, she left him in 1996) eked out a living selling copra and abaca. She had five surviving children; three of them died due to illness. Back then, Gloria recounted, they were poor but they got by. They never went hungry because there were always vegetables and fruits to eat.

By 1990, people were scrambling to work in the plantation. So in the plantation Gloria worked, first in the banana field as a deweeder, exposing herself to herbicide Furadan when the bananas were first planted. In seven years when the bananas bore fruit, she would move to the packing plant, earning P50 daily and very intermittently, first with Dole Stanfilco until 2000, with FBAC until 2002, then with Sumifru in 2003 until present. She now earns P365.00 daily. Gloria has worked various jobs in the packing plant – as banana selector, weigher, packer, and labeler.

The work in the packing plant had been marred by a string of labor complaints. From unpaid statutory benefits (no Philhealth, SSS, leave privileges, maternity leave, SIL, night differential), lack of due process in disciplinary action against workers, arbitrary suspensions, and illegal dismissals, Gloria recalled how these poor working conditions gave life to a collective struggle among banana workers separated by vast hectares of fields and packing plants, and how women transformed their energies into setting up their union.

Work demands became so severe that she used to work 12 to 20-hour days, starting work as early as 3 or 4 am, in order to achieve the production quota. She and other workers had to bring their clothes, thermos bottles, mosquito nets, and even their young children to the company mess hall, where they slept to make it to work on time the following day. Workers complained that Sumifru Philippines Corp. skirted the law on regularization.

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) identified the company as one of the top 20 companies engaged in illegal labor-only contracting.

No regrets

In hindsight, Gloria said nobody wanted the land converted. It caused so much strife, she lamented. Her parents, who were landowners of six hectares, attempted banana growing but went bankrupt because of loans and losses.

Gloria had regrets in her life. One such regret was her marriage to a jealous man, she said. She also regretted her family consenting to converting their land to become part of the banana plantations. But the one decision she said she never regretted was joining the union. “I don’t regret belonging in a union. My life has been made much better. I am thankful I am with KMU (Kilusang Mayo Uno). No, I will never ever entertain waiving my union membership,” Gloria said.

Her involvement with the union started with a simple grievance: hair.

Once upon a workday ages ago, Gloria was written up for a last warning for being caught not wearing her cap on plant premises. She explained to the quality inspector (QI) that she was letting her hair dry for a bit because she got  headaches wearing a cap on her damp hair. The QI refused to listen to her and affirmed the final warning.

She was furious, and made a scene in the work place. The QI backed off. She was able to get out of a possible suspension. But the experience made her realize how vulnerable she was. She promised she would never go through something like that again. With her co-workers and friends, Gloria began looking for a solution.

They looked for, and found the union.

During this time, militant unionism was already sweeping the plantation. The neighboring packing plant 220 had just won a legal case against Sumifru for money claims due to wage differentials, non-payment of service incentive leave, 13th month pay, and other benefits. They were able to do so by organizing themselves as a union, the Namasufa. In 2004, the same union federated under the National Federation of Labor Unions-Kilusang Mayo Uno (Naflu-KMU).

Gloria and the more senior women workers were inspired by their neighbors. They told themselves: why don’t we do the same? Why not form a union? We can also win. And so they did, but with great difficulty.

Forming a union

Management grew paranoid. Rumors circulated that workers in the other packing plants were beginning to unionize themselves. Spies were sent out to stalk them every time they left the plant to convene. The women were interrogated by management and chastised for prioritizing unionism over their family responsibilities.

So the women kept their union work a secret. Membership logbooks had to be kept in their person at all times. When management eventually got wind of the union, it was already too late. In 2006, they had their own union Packing Plant 92 Workers Union (PP92WU) registered with the DOLE.

The QIs stopped writing up violations arbitrarily after that.

“Management became a little scared of us, because they knew that we were a union. We had the same mind and we are willing to help each other out,” Gloria said.

Union work is tough, she explained. They contended not only with the company management, but also with soldiers and even barangay officials. As union treasurer, she was accused by soldiers of funneling union dues to buy guns and bullets for New People’s Army (NPA) rebels. One soldier told her that KMU was a “rebel front,” and that she would be compromised because she was a union officer. She told the soldier off and dared him to look at the union passbook.

She recalled being asked by another soldier, “Mother, you are already old. Are you really willing to die for KMU?”

Gloria said these threats affected her, but she remained loyal to her union. If at all, these threats only strengthened her commitment to unionism. Those who make threats should be the one ashamed of themselves for accusing people of crimes they did not commit, she said.

Why would Gloria give up her union when it has made her life and the life of other workers better? In unionism, she  found life-long friends and comrades. She learned how to speak in public, to defend herself, and to be articulate on labor standards and labor law. Being in a union made her feel secure, in the sense that she felt confident that other workers will speak up  and stand with her. Being in a union guaranteed that she will be represented if aggrieved.

Collective action

Moreover, successive victories of the militant unions in Compostela bolster her conviction that as long as workers’ unity is strong, there is no end but victory. The mere threat of a strike produced swift results.

In December 2013, Gloria and 200 other banana workers were arbitrarily laid off due to accusations that they sabotaged production after metal insertions were detected inside export bananas in a Japanese depot. They spent Christmas without jobs. After going on strike, the two unions Namasufa and PP92WU retook their jobs and were paid backwages on January the following year. In 2014, when Sumifru arbitrarily suspended all of PP 90 workers due to an illegal closure, Gloria and her co-unionists waged a solidarity strike, meaning they went on strike too, in support of the dismissed PP 90 workers. Sumifru soon folded, and all dismissed workers were reinstated.

In 2015, when Sumifru unilaterally changed the hourly wage system to piece-rate or pakyawan, workers protested in droves, leading to the formation of four new unions under Naflu-KMU. Under threat of a huge strike, Sumifru capitulated and reverted to the previous hourly wage system.

The downside to her unionism was being at odds with her family. In Gloria’s case, her active involvement in the union given her age used to create tension with her children. Often, when she would be gone for days because of union activities, Labor Day rallies, or solidarity actions for beleaguered affiliate unions, her children would complain that she is already old and should stop.

“Don’t be like that. It has not done you any harm, has it? I would have lost my job two times if it weren’t for the strike. I would still work 14-hour days if the pakyawan system hasn’t been revoked by the strike. If at all, thank the union I still had a job that could feed us when you were younger,” she would remind her children.

Her family now leaves her alone to pursue her union responsibilities. Like many other striking lolas, Gloria goes to the strike camp, her granddaughter in tow, to attend meetings, visit ailing unionists or family members, cook, clean the camp, consult with members, and sometimes, even keep watch of the camp premises at night.

Constant threats

The workers value their security, given the spate of harassment and assassination attempts.

“Of course, I am afraid. Nobody wants to die,” Gloria said. “But we are not doing anything wrong. We have nothing to fear.”

Gloria said Sumifru, their local cohorts, the AFP, and the PNP have been campaigning against KMU. Soldiers called on the relatives of KMU members to ask their family members to surrender and waive their membership in the union.

Some of her relatives and neighbors have even pleaded with her to “surrender.” She scoffed at them. “Surrender? What would I be surrendering for? Because I’m a unionist? That’s stupid. You don’t surrender when you haven’t done anything illegal.”

The smear campaign against KMU is not new, she said, but it remains hurtful for her. Gloria said it is painful and infuriating to hear accusations by police, soldiers, and barangay officials, that being in a union makes one a terrorist or a criminal. “I know I’m not a criminal. I’m a unionist. If they want to go after those breaking the law, why don’t they go after Sumifru? Look at what all these accusations have done to our comrades. One of ours is dead.”

Since the beginning of the strike in October 11, three separate assassinations have been carried out against unionists – the two attempts against Victor Ageas and Jerry Alicante unsuccessful, the other leading to the brutal death of Danny Boy Bautista, a banana harvester.

There appears to be active military involvement in labor issues in Compostela town. This has led KMU to file numerous complaints of trade union repression. The Philippine government has been the subject of International Labour Organisation (ILO) investigations in 2009, and 2015, following the assassination attempts and continued harassment of founding NAMASUFA chair Vicente “Boy” Barrios and murder of another unionist Jerson Lastimoso in 2006.

With all the complaints filed by KMU against the Philippine government for its failure to protect workers, Compostela is considered by many in the trade union movement to be a labor rights violation hotspot.

Determined, resolute

Yet despite the blows received recently by the strikers in Compostela, they are not budging. They remain convinced that they will win.

For Gloria and other elderly women on strike, they are fighting for collective bargaining agreement (CBA). Their shot at retirement is on the line. But more importantly, they are fighting for all oppressed workers who continue to be exploited by profit-raking multinational corporations like Sumifru.

Asked what a CBA means to her, she said it may not be enough for her to live a comfortable life, since she is not eligible for a pension anyway. But at least a CBA means finally getting the chance to rest from working in the plant. A retirement package is a welcome reprieve from decades of work. Gloria said she can start planting again and spend time with her grandchildren. She has 10 of them.  

And so, Gloria the striking lola will persevere in her union and in the strike. She has grown beyond the fear that comes with docility and powerlessness attributed to women and the elderly, and has refused to accept the many forms of oppression from her employer. Once Gloria has recognized the power of the collective, she is certain that giants like Sumifru can lose their power, and power relationships between employee and employer can be altered. A strike is essential for such a transformation. This is why she persists in the strike, and continues to believe that they will achieve victory.

For her, unionism is a tried and tested formula for workers to be treated fairly and with dignity. She wears unionism as a badge of honor and her leadership and involvement is living proof that the strike is where sixty-something lolas have a place.

If any lesson can be learned from Gloria’s story, it is that in love and in strike, one can never be too old.