OPEN LETTER
December 26, 2008
Dear JOE, AK-NAFLU-KMU, BAYAN, BAYAN MUNA, ANAKPAWIS, and the church-based LABOR APOSTOLATE,
We are angry. And we know that there are many out there who are angrier than we are for the same reason. And that reason is simple. We are sick and tired of all you guys claiming to speak for us and our fellow DoleFil workers.
We feel like screaming every time you mouth words about fighting for our rights, when you obviously are just thinking about yours. Your propagandists told us that the essence of democracy is providing every citizen the right to speak his or her mind and make his or her own informed judgments, but you yourselves do not respect our silence and the choices we have made. In other words, your concept of democracy (national democracy with a socialist perspective) is limited to having your rights and you’re freedoms respected, at the expense of ours.
We already responded to your calls, and our response has been very clear – we choose not to heed your calls to ‘misswipe’ our IDs or to engage in sabotage by putting hard objects on fresh fruits not because we do not want increases in our salaries and benefits during CBA negotiations, but precisely because we love our job even more. Because quite frankly, we are prepared to lose our jobs and our rights just to move this company forward because this is where we in our level become stable. You may think that is not correct, you can tell us all the dire warnings about the evils of capitalism, but quite frankly all we see is your pathetic efforts to prop up your ‘Marxist-Leninist-Maoist’ cause. You told us that you are simply protecting our freedoms and our rights, but who told you to do that? We assure you that when we feel that our rights and our freedoms are at peril, we will stand up and fight for them ourselves.
Your propagandists told us that capitalism is the source of all social evils, that all capitalists are greed and oppressive and have done immoral acts. As someone who sees immorality being committed want only in many ways every day and by everyone (yes, including the ones you do), we may have become bored. But you have not been able to offer us any viable alternative, while Dole Philippines has bent over backwards many times to accommodate you while continuing to work hard despite all the obstacle and the brickbats you have thrown its way. From where we sit, Dole Philippines is one of those who has been working really hard to move this region forward while all of you have been so busy with one and only one thing: to make sure Dole Philippines does not succeed. So forgive us if we do not want to join you in your moral pissing contest. Forgive us if we have chosen to see things from another perspective. You say Dole Philippines the problem. We say, we are the problem, more to the point, we think you are a bigger problem than Dole Philippines is. Taking Dole Philippines out of the country may solve part of the problem, but that leaves us with a bigger problem: you… that’s right, YOU MAOIST COMMUNISTS!
While we felt outraged that Dole Philippines stuck to its position during the failed 2006 CBA negotiations by declaring a ‘lockout’, we have since then taken the higher moral ground and forgiven it. Yes my dear AK-ANAFLU-KMU and the church-based Labor Apostolate moralists, we have done what you have told us to do when we were still part of the deceived herd, which you say is the Christian and moral thing to do: forgive. Especially since Dole Philippines has offered forgiveness and amnesty for those who ‘misswipe’ and has tried to make amends for it. You certainly have not apologized and continue to be defiant, continuing to insult us everyday with your protestation.
We know you do not think that management’s offer of amnesty was not enough, or that the company was insincere, but please spare us the hypocrisy of telling us that you do so for the sake of protecting the rights of workers. The real reason is because you smell blood and want to go for the kill!
We do not like some NFL people too. That’s why we did not heed their call to vote for it in the last two certification elections. We preferred to campaign and vote for AK-NAFLU-KMU. But when things started to go wrong, our outlook changed. As much as we do not like some NFL people, we do not like you even more, we may not trust NFL people, but guess what; we do not trust you even more!
You know why? Because all you do is whimper and disrupt this country. You belittle little progress the government makes; conveniently forgetting that it is not just the investors who have been working so hard to achieve them. Every single day, we, the working class keeps the faith burning in our hearts that this country will finally pull itself out of the mess and we work so hard to do that. Every little progress is the result of our collective effort, we who toil hard everyday in our jobs. Yet, you persist in one and only thing: making the Philippines look bad in the eyes of the world and making sure that this country continues to suffer to prove your sorry point. In the process, you continue to destroy what we the working class and the capitalists painstakingly try to build. So please do not be surprised that we do not share your cause – a communist cause. Do not be surprised that we have become contemptuous of your antics. You have move heaven and earth to destroy the capitalist credibility, you have convened all kinds of fora and hearings and all you have done is test our patience to the core. For all your effort, you have only succeeded in dragging us further down. We say enough.
Don’t get us wrong. We are not asking that we take immorality lying down, or that we let Dole Philippines get away with anything unfair. But you have tried to prove your accusation all these time and you have not succeeded, so it is time to let things be. Besides, you are doing something immoral as well if not utterly unforgivable. You are consorting with the godless communist terrorists CPP-NPA – the same people who have been trying to kill investments and democracy for years.
So please wake up and take a reality check. In the absence of responsible trade union leadership, many of us have decided to cast our lot with Dole Philippines, even if we do not like it. A flawed job provider is better than scheming power hungry fools, who swindled us of our hard-earned income by illegal over-deduction of our monthly union dues, immorally converting our rice allowance into plain rice just to have kickbacks, investing our money for minimart that exclusively owned by union officers only, unjustifiable monthly deduction of our hard-earned income for hospitalization and death aid plan and worst, you forced us to sign a check-off authorization just to slash P500 from our respective assessment fees.
Your pathetic justification that you have consequently made only underscore what we think are true: you are spineless and unreliable people whose only cover is to cry suppression when your ruse does not work. You are like bullies who taunt and provoke, but cry oppression when taken to task for your cruelty to the poor workers.
We would have respected you if you took the consequences of your actions like real heroes: calmly and responsibly instead of kicking and screaming and making lame excuses. You say you are willing to die for us, that you do all these things for the oppressed workers, but you are not even willing to go to jail for the falsification cases filed by your constituents against you. Worst, you even made as collaterals some union properties just to pay for your own bail bonds!
Come on you really think we believe that you did not want to bring down the company when that is the one and only thing you have been trying to do in the last many years?
We love this company and we want peace and progress. Many among us do not give a fuck who sits at the collective bargaining table because we will work hard and do our share to make things work. If you only do your jobs being the true defenders of workers (as what you want us to believe), the ones that we elected you to do, things would be a lot simpler and easier for every one.
The past and current events only prove one thing. You are more dangerous and a serious threat to this country than anybody is. We have forecasted what you are capable of doing – you are ready to burn this country and reduce everything to ashes just to prove your point.
HUGPONG INDEPENDENTE SA TRABAHANTE
Reference: 09102552746
