15 April 2017

Statement of Kilusang Mayo Uno - SMR on the Court Action and Fascism Against
Striking Workers of Shin Sun and Freshmax Corp.

Kilusang Mayo Uno Southern Mindanao condemns the recent court action and fascism
against the striking workers of Shin Sun Tropical Fruits and Freshmax Corp., both
owned by Korean Mi Kyung Kwon. At around 9:30 in the morning today, joint forces of
the Compostela Philippine National Police and members of the 66th IBPA of the Armed
Forces of the Philippines, accompanied by Sheriffs and by the Korean owner Mi Kyung
Kwon, attempted to break the barricade of the strikers resulting to a scuffle that
nearly led to the arrests of several workers.

We are outraged by the conduct of the local government, the courts and state forces
towards the workers on strike. What they have shown is not a bias towards resolving
the crisis in favor of labor but breaking labor in order to end the strike. A Writ
of Preliminary Injunction was granted by RTC Judge Jill Rose Jaugan-Lo, ordering
the strikers to fold and give up their barricade under the threat of arrests. We
condemn court intervention in what is clearly a labor dispute.

This glaring anti-worker stance of the RTC and state fascism is condemnable and
repugnant to the State's mandate to protect labor and respect the right to freedom
of association.

We are infuriated that capitalists are treated with kid gloves while workers
brutalized every time there is a strike action. Why is the capitalist Mi Kyung Kwon
and her ilk not being made accountable for ending the livelihood of the workers on
strike? Ms. Kwon, the foreign capitalist who owns both companies, is a serial labor
rights violator. In 2013, months after Typhoon Pablo desolated the region, she
ordered the termination of employment of all union members of Freshmax Workers
Union (FWU-NAFLU-KMU), prompting a strike which eventually won despite Kwon's use
of goons and thugs to harass the strikers. Now, she is resorting to legal
harassment in order to force the strikers to capitulate.

The strikers are not the lawbreakers here. Kwon and her ilk are. They must be made
to respect our labor laws particularly on regularization. The labor agency hired by
Kwon, ECQ Serve Human Resource Corp., has been declared to engage in labor-only
contracting (LOC) by the Department of Labor and Employment. Under the Labor Code,
the workers on strike should be declared regular workers. Instead, Kwon fired them
outright and replaced the LOC with another.

The demands of the striking workers are legitimate. They should be reinstated and
regularized pursuant to our labor laws. Their strike is justified and continues to
be supported by the workers and the people.

For Reference:
Carl Anthony Olalo, secretary general, KMU Southern Mindanao, 09123861000