THE AK-NAFLU-KMU

THE AK-NAFLU-KMU

For two consecutive terms since 2001, the Asosasyon sa mga Mamumuo sa Dolefil alang sa Kalingkawasan ug Demokrasya sa Nasud (Amado Kadena or AK)-National Federation of Labor Unions (NAFLU), an affiliate of Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) keep on winning the hearts and minds of Dolefil workers. Being the bargaining representative of the approximately 5, 300 strong regular hourly-paid rank-and-file workers, the AK-NAFLU-KMU through its chairman Jose Nava Teruel got the sympathy and trust of then Dolefil’s managing director Dangku Stambuk, a Croatian national who provided everything just to satisfy the caprices of the militant union.

It was in Stambuk’s administration that the Dolefil management donated a two-storey building office for AK-NAFLU-KMU. A satisfactory wage increases, rice subsidies, bottom line bonuses, educational allowances and an Educational Research Fund were granted. Even the regularizations of more than 1,500 contractual workers were attributed to the union as if it was the one pushing for it. Thus, from 2001 to 2006, the union enjoyed a strong collaborative relationship with Stambuk.

Stambuk, like many innocent workers might perceive AK-NAFLU-KMU as an ordinary labor union fighting for the rights of workers. It may never in his wild imaginations that he was dealing a labor union which is an instrument of an international movement fighting against the capitalists (imperialists). Jose Ma. Sison, the chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) confirmed this in an exclusive talk show in Brussels, Belgium in 1987. Sison categorically stated that KMU is the leading force of the Philippine revolution.

Everything changed in 2006 when around the time Stambuk was replaced by Kevin Davis, AK-NAFLU-KMU won its certification election to represent the workers by a landslide, with 87% of the vote during an election that saw the highest voter turnout in the history of union elections at Dolefil. Almost immediately after taking the reigns at Dolefil, Davis policies were opposed by AK-NAFLU-KMU.