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COL
Resolution No.: 04-02 A
COUNCIL OF LEADERS’ RESOLUTION ON COMMEMORATING THE CENTENNIAL OF THE
PHILIPPINE TRADE UNION MOVEMENT AWARE
that the year 2002 marks the centennial anniversary of the founding of the
first trade union federation in the Philippines – the Unión Obrera
Democrática (UOD); RECALLING,
that on 2 February 1902, amidst the repressive policies of the American
occupation forces, some 150 voting delegates, in the presence of an even
larger number of non-delegates, from the printers’ unions and other
workers’ organizations (mutual-aid associations called gremios)
of barbers, cigar-makers, tobacco workers, clerks, carpenters,
woodcutters, lithographers and other laborers met in Teatro Variedades in
Sampaloc, Manila, to form the UOD. REMEMBERING,
that a few months after its founding, UOD led a series of mass actions in
different factories to press for higher wages and better working
conditions and that these militant actions snowballed into the first
general strike on August of 1902; KNOWING
that while fighting to better the working and living conditions of the
masses, the UOD continued the workers’ struggle for the liberation of
the motherland. Hand in hand with the desire for national liberation, it
was in the UOD that the sparks of class-consciousness was first
articulated, setting the fires that still burn today in large sections of
the Philippine labor movement; ASSERTING,
that while it has yet to alter the country’s inequitable socio-political
structures, the labor movement spawned by the UOD has nonetheless
succeeded in securing all the democratic and human rights, including
workers’ and trade union rights, that today’s working people enjoy,
albeit limited by existing anti-worker laws; CONCERNED,
that few people outside of the labor movement and some academic circles
seem to appreciate the significance of the 100-year struggle of the trade
union movement; BELIEVING,
that the Labor Centennial provides a unique opportunity for the working
people to reflect on the meaning of the 100-year struggle and its
relevance to present day struggles against all forms of oppression,
especially at a time when workers’ and trade union rights are being
undermined by the onslaught of neo-liberal globalization; RESOLVED,
THEREFORE, TO DIRECT ALL THE LABOR CENTER’S IMPLEMENTING AUTHORITIES TO:
1)
INITIATE OR PARTICIPATE IN VARIOUS ACTIVITIES AIMED AT RAISING THE
WORKING PEOPLE’S AWARENESS ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LABOR CENTENNIAL;
AND, 2)
FULLY MOBILIZE ON MAY 1 TO COMMEMORATE THE LABOR CENTENNIAL; RESOLVED
FURTHER, TO URGE THE GMA ADMINISTRATION, THROUGH THE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
AND EMPLOYMENT (DOLE), TO COMMEMORATE THE LABOR CENTENNIAL IN A FITTING
MANNER AND TO LAUNCH AN EFFECTIVE MEDIA CAMPAIGN TO RAISE PUBLIC AWARENESS
ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LABOR CENTENNIAL;
DONE THIS 26TH MARCH 2002, IN QUEZON CITY. |
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