Workers, guards clash anew

SAN PEDRO CITY—A number of workers, on their fifth day of strike at a beverage distillery in Cabuyao City, Laguna province, were hurt in a fresh round of clash between the workers and the company’s security personnel on Saturday afternoon.

Supt. Joseph Bayan, the police chief of Cabuyao, said violence erupted anew as the guards of Asia Brewery tried to disperse the protesting workers of the Tanduay Distillery Inc.

Workers onboard three jeepneys, said Bayan, tried to approach Gate 3 of the brewery compound but guards blocked them and drove them back to Gate 2.

Although two separate companies, Tanduay operates its distillery inside Asia Brewery’s property in Barangay (village) Sala.

On May 18, members of the Tanggulang Ugnayan Daluyang Lakas ng Anakpawis sa Tanduay Distillers Inc., an association of contractual workers at Tanduay, declared a strike and erected their picket line in front of Gate 2.

The group is calling for the regularization of at least 397 workers.

Police could not give an exact figure, though, of those injured, but the striking workers claimed at least 30 of them were hurt.

Bayan said Asia Brewery’s security personnel had used water cannons.