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Thursday, November 10, 2005
NLRC rules ALU failed to prove claim v. Holiday Plaza
By Grecar Nilles
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
The five-month-old strike by some employees of Cebu Holiday Plaza Hotel (CHPH) is illegal, the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) ruled.
In a 25-page decision, NLRC Executive Labor Arbiter Violeta Ortiz-Bantug has also directed the Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP), the CHPH Employees Union Inc. and union president Yolito M. Banga to pay the hotel P1.1 million as nominal and exemplary damages and attorney’s fees.
The union officers, however, are unfazed by the decision, saying it is not yet final and executory.
ALU spokesperson Joy Lim, in an interview, said they will contest the decision of the NLRC.
She also said they will continue with the picket in front of the hotel’s driveway.
Lim admitted, though, that their picket “has become ineffective” since the union members who joined the strike, except for Banga, have resigned or went back to work for the hotel.
The local union earlier alleged that the hotel refused to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement, and that they threatened several members with retrenchment if they did not resign from the labor union.
In her decision, Bantug said the strike, which started last May 20, was illegal because it did not have a legal basis to stand on.
Under the law, a union can only hold a strike for two reasons: collective bargaining deadlock and unfair labor practice.
Bantug said the local union and the ALU failed to prove their claim that the hotel management did not negotiate with the union for a collective bargaining agreement.
She said that the several conferences between the management and the union officers prove that the management was willing to negotiate with the workers.
“The duty to bargain does not obligate a party to make concessions or yield a position fairly held. Hence, an employer’s adamant insistence on a bargaining position is not necessarily a refusal to bargain in good faith,” the ruling read.
Bantug also said the local union even failed to present an employee who was harassed and threatened with retrenchment if he does not withdraw membership from the union.
“If indeed there was coercion or harassment, some of those who signified should not have brought the matter to the attention of no less than the regional director of the (Department of Labor and Employment), much less could they have gone to the extent of filing a petition for confirmation of their withdrawal from the union, and for the cancellation of the union’s registration,” the ruling read.
(November 10, 2005 issue)
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