A LABOR organization has lauded the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) for their swift action on an alleged “red-tagging” incident involving one of its leaders.
The Philippine Trade and General Workers Organization (PTGWO) was referring to the red-tagging incident that involved its local union president whose residence was visited by barangay officials to inform him that he was listed as a member of the communist rebels’ New People’s Army (NPA).
“Our local union president feared for his life and that of his family when barangay officials went to his house and informed him that he is listed as among the members of the New People’s Army (NPA). He was being dissuaded from organizing workers inside their company,” lawyer Arnel Dolendo, PTGWO national president, said in a statement.
Red-tagging is defined as the “labeling of individuals or organizations as communists, subversives, or terrorists.”
“It is only through the immediate responses of the DOLE and the CHR that the red-tagging stopped,” said Dolendo.
The PTGWO, Dolendo said, sought the assistance of the government officials who facilitated information about the good track record of the PTGWO in legitimately pursuing its objectives of empowering the workers.
PTGWO is presently the biggest labor federation, in terms of individual membership, with more than 100 labor unions in various industries, as per the records of the Bureau of Labor Relations (BLR) of the DOLE. It is an affiliate of the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP), and is one of the oldest labor organizations in the country, having been founded in 1953.
“This is a notable experience for PTGWO, that while it is possible for forces against unionism to harass workers through red-tagging, the government has an effective mechanism to address these issues,” stressed Dolendo, also the secretary general of the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines.
