On the Kowloon Restaurant Workers’ Strike

Kowloon Restaurant’s greasy pancit canton is a actually a favorite of mine but I would now have to hold back to help compel the restaurant’s owners to make amends for the exploitation of their workers.

[Re-posted from Anton Dulce's Multiply site]

Before June of this year, the Kowloon management refused to pay the minimum wage which was mandated by law. In fact, it did not follow the three most-recent wage hikes, amounting to 82 pesos. As a result, while other workers were already receiving at least P382 a day, the workers of Kowloon only got home P300.

To pressure management into giving them something which the law already mandated as theirs yet which management refused to give, the workers wore black ribbons at work in a single day last June. But instead of listening to the workers, management instead reprimanded them, especially the union leaders.

Afterwards, they decided to hold a “picket protest” after their work hours and away from any locations that would result in disruptions in operations. Afterwards, management decided to hold negotiations with the union. But secretly, they filed a case of “illegal strike” against the workers at the NLRC (National Labor Relations Commission). So when management did agree to raise their wages to P377 a day, the workers only enjoyed this wage hike for one pay day. Why? Because the other Saturday, all 73 members of the union were fired.

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May 12 Transport Strike

May 12, 2008. Last May 12, the University Student Council (USC), through some of its members, in solidarity with the transport sector, participated in the nationwide transport strike. We released an article-statement and helped organize the picket at Philcoa. We even helped prepare lunch, which was simply monggo and rice, for everyone at the picket while we were in Pook Dagohoy.

I didn’t quite stay long enough at Philcoa. After taking the lunch from Pook Dagohoy to the people at the picket, I just stayed for less than an hour taking a few photos and talking with some of my counterparts in the USC and STAND-UP.

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