Filipinos Stage Rally for the Right to Strike

MANILA — About 4,000 workers rallied peacefully Sunday for an end to government restrictions on labor strikes.

Under Philippine law, the government can order a “compulsory settlement” of strikes in so-called vital industries, such as those making products for export. Workers accuse the government of using the law to protect foreign investors at the expense of cheaply paid workers.

Eleven strikers have been killed, purportedly by company guards or government agents breaking up picket lines, in walkouts this year.

“Is this peace?” labor leader Bonifacio Tupas asked the crowd, referring to the deaths. “How can there be peace when workers’ rights have been suppressed and our picket lines are being smashed by military agents?”

Tupas was jailed for eight months in 1983 on a subversion charge.