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Monday, September 08, 2003
KMU slams retrenchment of 210 Philex miners
By Harley F. Palangchao
THE Regional Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) slammed Philex Mining Corporation Sunday for retrenching 210 workers allegedly due to the economic crunch being experienced by the company.
KMU spokesperson Nida Tundagi stressed the retrenchment of the workers is meant to save the company millions of pesos by hiring contractual workers as replacements.
"Contrary to the management's arguments, Philex is now hiring contractual workers to replace those retrenched. Almost 80 workers have been fired from July to August this year," she added.
Tundagi said the retrenchment is only a company's maneuver to secure more profit.
"The company is maximizing the government's contractualization policy on labor," she said.
She also pointed out that Philex is one of the biggest producers of copper and gold in the country with more than three tons of gold production and about two million kilograms of copper in 2002.
KMU said Philex, one of the two operational mines in Benguet, started retrenching 49 workers in July and 161 last month. It has a rank-in-file workforce of 2,500.
Most of the retrenched workers have been working for the company for the past 15 to 30 years, it added.
Tundagi said Philex has a projection of about 10 percent workforce in every department to be retrenched, which means that 300 more workers are also to be laid off soon.
At present, the retrenched workers are busy consulting labor organizations and lawyers for a possible labor class suit against the company, which has been operating for the past 45 years.
Engineer Redempta Baluda, head of the environment and community development division of Philex, explained last week that the retrenchment was caused by low production because of low-grade ores.
But she said only 193 miners who did not avail themselves of the early retirement package (ERP) will be retrenched. Seventeen others availed themselves of the ERP.
Baluda said that on the average, the company mines around 0.6 grams of gold per ton. "But due to the difficulty we are encountering on low grade ore, we are only mining around 0.4 grams of gold per ton."
A consolidated income of statement released by Philex showed that last year, the company only had a P2,246,335 revenue from its gold operations compared to P2,551,656 in 2001 and P3,176,381 in 2000; copper: P1,571,283 in 2002, P1,160,195 in 2001 and P1,679,272 in 2000; and silver: P36,415 (2002), P47,039 (2001) and P58,955 (2000), among others.
Operating costs and expenses include: mining and milling costs, including depletion and depreciation - P2,763,555 in 2002, P3,334,254 in 2001 and P3,210,570 in 2000.
Income from such operations was pegged at P165,936 last year from a loss of P361,702 in 2001 and an earning of P852,938 in 2000.
(September 8, 2003 issue)
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