It is a worrying trend for picketers to be detained and charged for offenses, trumped up or not. Strikes and pickets as a social concept are expressions of indignation and protest. Taken conservatively, they are non-violent declarations of power, part of a “self-limiting revolution” that seeks reforms within the framework of the current order. In fact, when the concept of the right to strike evolved, it was so deeply ingrained in our democratic politics there was scant need to statutorily declare it.
Strikes tend to become violent when either the means or the ends are defeated – when the demands of the strikers are not met honorably, when the strike itself is forcibly subdued, when one side substitutes physical aggression for reason. While these incidents often deflect, misplace, or misdirect public anger, the challenge for all of us is to steadily focus on the root causes for strikes.
It is not uncommon to find UP students in pickets, as we affirm generation after generation of critical thinkers. We want to come to terms with the wide disparity between what we study and what we see, between what should be and what is now. More meaningfully, we join our parents behind the picket lines because we stand to benefit from their practical gains.
Workers and other labor forces have the “power to strike” when they have irreconcilable and fundamental differences with employers and owners of production. Even though the wealthy own the capital, they do not personally work the factories, offices, haciendas. Thus, the withdrawal of labor by the workers can be so powerful a weapon when used correctly.
Through the years, labor has competently asserted its capacity to, yes, paralyze production and distress the economy, but in the long-run, secure valid benefits for more people and improve society as a whole. Power, of course, is demonstrated by the strength of reason and numbers. Students as a sector have both.
These are suitable times for action – in a time when the agrarian reform law has been exposed as a sham, Melanie, Remy Jade and Januelle showed us the way. They have shown exceptional courage and incisive thinking; they solidly allied themselves with the people who were intended to benefit from the law.
With self-respect, we say we have reached the level of awareness when it is no longer enough that we join strikes. To mark our coming of age, last year we launched several and this September, we will again organize our own.
By the end of this month, Congress would have settled discussions on the national budget of 2012. Students nationwide have agreed to conduct general strikes throughout September in response to budget cuts, failure of the government to provide social services, and poor governance of Noynoy Aquino. We demand change and critical reforms in the education system, an end to commercialization, privatization, and profiteering in education, more scholarships, and increased public support for schools and universities from basic to tertiary. We also press for specific, but enduring, actions that will move our education away from rote learning, colonial content, and classroom fascism.
We cower not at the prospect of jail – we’ll eventually find a way to free Melanie, Remy Jade and Januelle and end the custom of punishing dissenters. The only thing we are afraid of, is that time we stop learning about the world and dreaming of a better one.
"The General Strike has taught the working class more in four days than years of talking could have done." - Arthur Balfour