Breaking away from dynastic rule

Former senator and labor leader Ernesto “Boy” Herrera has risen from semi-retirement to take on the challenge to rebuild and revitalize the Philippine labor movement. He needs to break some chains to succeed.

There is no other trade union leader in the country today who has the brains, the stature and the leadership to make this mission possible.

Perhaps, it will take a quarter of a century or more before the trade union movement can again produce a labor leader whom the employers will respect, the government can work with or the workers themselves can trust.

But first, Boy Herrera must wrestle with his own kin or kind.

“Barrier of personality”

Late last year,  the 89-year-old Democrito “Kito” Mendoza, president of the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines since its founding in 1974,has crossed what the American labor leader George Meany calls the “barrier of personality” that has made trade union bureaucrats impervious to democratic rule or changes in leadership.

Without fanfare but perhaps with great anticipation, Kito Mendoza turned in his resignation letter to pave the way for a smooth leadership transition. He seems to have prepared for it. The resignation was to take effect November 1, 2011.

Under its constitution and by-laws, when the TUCP president resigns, the General Secretary “automatically”  takes over as the new president. This constitutional fiat paved the way for Boy Herrera, the TUCP General Secretary, to become the new TUCP President.

Oath of office

On November 10, 2011, the new TUCP president took his oath of office before Manila City Mayor Alfredo Lim.He will serve the unexpired term of the outgoing president until he or a new one is elected officially.

Kito Mendoza must have felt relieved to find a successor worthy of the name of the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines. He had to pass the baton, as it were, to a brother in the trade union movement with whom he has work with for so many years without fear of being stabbed at the back or abandoned.

That is how Boy Herrera became the new president of the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines.

Smooth transition

The new TUCP president is no stranger to the public. He was a former Senator, a former member of Congress, and a recipient of the George Meany International Human Rights Award. Lech Walesa, a welder and labor leader who later became President of Poland, was also given this award.

“Why don’t you inform the public that you are now the head of TUCP”, said one senior TUCP vice-president.” Call a press conference, he said.

“No, I want a smooth transition” said the new TUCP President.

TUCP is a large organization with over 300 thousand members. TUCP is the only trade union center in the country who has representatives in almost all of the seventeen regional wage boards except in ARMM.

Tripartite representatives

Top TUCP officials sit in tripartite bodies like the Social Security System, the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, the Philippine Economic Zone Authority and the National Wages and Productivity Commission, among others.

Of the twenty members of the National Tripartite Industrial Peace Council representing labor, twelve are from the TUCP and its allied organizations.

The NTIPC is the highest tripartite body representing labor, the business sector and the government and serves as an advisory body to the Seretary of Labor and Employment and the President of the Philippines.

Boy Herrera is the Vice-Chairman for Labor of the NTIPC. The Vice-Chairman for Industry is the head of the Employers’ Confederation of the Philippines.

Until two years ago, TUCP was represented in Philhealth, TESDA, the Pag-Ibig Fund, GSIS, the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority and the Clark Development Authority.

International affiliation

Of course, the TUCP, together with the Federation of Free Workers, is highly respected by other labor organization abroad. TUCP is a member of the Governing Council of the International Trade Union Congress and its branches in the Asia-Pacific region. TUCP is a partner organization of the International Labor Organization and the Solidarity Center of the AFL-CIO.

TUCP is represented in Congress by its party-list representative Raymund DemocritoMendoza, son of former TUCP President Kito Mendoza.

Something happened

Something happened late last year and early this year when TUCP had almost succeeded in making the transition from four decades of hegemonic rule of the elder Mendoza to a new brand of leadership represented by his  long-time associate Boy Herrera.

Kito Mendoza’s two sons did not like what happened. They talked to their father and asked him to take back his resignation letter. One was particularly mean. In one union meeting he said “one could get hurt”, to which another TUCP vice-president replied “do it if you can” or words to that effect.

Trade union debates, like in all discussions where there are sharp differences of opinion, can go nasty, sometimes violent.

The Brothers Mendoza

Last week, the Brothers Mendoza, together with their staff and supporters, “occupied” the TUCP offices in Quezon City.

The new TUCP president had to call the police to help him get through the padlocked gates. He was told to back off, which he did.

“I cannot afford to have people killed by these goons,” said Boy Herrera on the first day he was to report for work as the new TUCP president.

Hardly has he assumed office when his brothers in the TUCP denied him the privilege to serve the organization to which he has devoted the best years of his life.

The first task of the new TUCP President is to break the family dynasty that has ruled TUCP for many years and won’t go away. –David Diwa, Manila Standard Today

*Dave Diwa is the president of the National Labor Union and a member of the National Tripartite Industrial Peace Council and the National Wages and Productivity Commission.