Rabbit workers bewail prolonged illegal strike

TARLAC CITY — Labor Day has nothing much to offer to the families of more than a thousand employees of one of the country’s oldest bus companies, whose operations have been crippled since the start of Holy Week by an illegal strike staged by a faction of their union.

This, as there are no indications that the Philippine Rabbit Bus Lines (PRBL) will resume operations soon as the handful of strikers, backed by militant groups Bayan Muna and Anakpawis, continue to defy the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE)’s April 5 return-to-work order.

The strike was carried out by 40 members of a faction of the Philippine Rabbit Bus Employees Union (PRBEU) who accused the company of "unfair labor practices."

The splinter group demanded that the management recognize it as the workers’ "legitimate" representative and called for the resignation of Joey Gonzales as PRBEU president.

The faction is led by PRBL employee Alan Bugtong, who lost in the PRBEU election.

The bus firm’s management has remained firm that only DOLE has the sole authority to resolve the intra-union dispute, even as it has terminated the services of the striking workers.

The company has the prerogative to resume its operations between Metro Manila and Northern Luzon, but it decided against this after its drivers and conductors were reportedly threatened by activists supporting the strikers.

During a strike last year, activists commandeered a Metro Manila-bound Rabbit bus carrying passengers, and then burst the tires and destroyed the radiator.

A few weeks after that strike ended, communist guerrillas torched a Rabbit bus in Barangay Estrada in Capas, Tarlac.