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Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Charges fly over strike vote ballots
By Danilo V. Adorador III
A HIGH turnout was recorded in Monday's strike balloting of the Phase II Port Workers Union (PPWU), amid allegations that the voting was biased because it was done inside the Associated Labor Union's (ALU) office in Kauswagan.
As of 5:55 p.m. Monday, the government-supervised strike balloting yielded 232 voters of the original 298 total membership of PPWU.
ALU-Northern Mindanao Regional Vice President Nicandro Borja said the voting would continue at 10 p.m., claiming that the result would put an end to questions whether the strike would push through.
"We definitely are going to stage a strike; the result of the strike balloting will confirm that," Borja said.
This came even as Oroport spokesman lawyer Noel Tan alleged that they received reports stating that the strike was intended to ultimately dismantle Oroport.
"Unsa man ni the union reportedly cited as one of their demands the division of Oroport into Casco and Inport. That's not unfair labor practice it's splitting up the company," Tan said.
In a phone interview, Tan reiterated anew to Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro that management respects the right of the port workers to strike but insisted that "unfair labor practices" don't constitute the heart of the problem.
Workers' will
Meanwhile, Councilor Alexander Dacer, the City Council labor committee chairman, criticized the conduct of the strike balloting saying it should have been done within Oroport's premises "to ensure that it's fair and valid."
"The strike balloting should have been done in the workplace to really determine if it's really the workers' will if they really bent on staging a strike. It's rather unpleasant to think that the balloting is conducted at their office," Dacer said.
But Borja defended the conduct of the strike balloting at ALU's regional headquarters.
"We conducted it here to prevent the management from influencing the outcome of the voting. We have conducted it here before many times, so there's no reason we can't do it again here," Borja told Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro.
Borja also assailed "insinuations" that the voting was invalid because of the venue.
"This is purely legal; otherwise the National Conciliation and Mediation Board (NCMB) 10 would not be here to supervise the strike balloting," Borja said.
A team of NCMB 10 labor arbiters led by Regional Director Florido Akut supervised the strike vote.
Later on, Tan explained that the case of Arturo Climaco's status on the board of directors of Oroport is a corporate matter and does not cover "unfair labor practices."
Climaco said earlier that while he was elected "in absentia" to the board he didn't reject the board seat outright despite reports that he issued an affidavit of non-acceptance.
Tan also said while the port workers have the right to hold strikes they cannot sit idly by and do nothing. He said the port workers own 2.7 percent of the shares in Oroport.
"We have to fight. It's not about the workers anymore; it is basically a fight between the owners of the company, the Mendozas and the Siaos," Tan said. (With a report from Stephen Capillas)
(October 18, 2005 issue)
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