Friday, September 26, 2008 Veco union prepares ‘drastic action’ v. firm
THE Visayan Electric Co. Union (Vecu) yesterday said the company is getting worse and that they are planning drastic actions to address the situation.
Vecu president Casmero Mahilum said the labor issues they are raising include the management’s act of union busting by converting the rank-and-file positions to confidential positions.
This threatened their security of tenure as guaranteed by the Constitution and the Labor Code.
Mahilum said labor-only contracting is rampant at Veco since the group of Jaime Jose Aboitiz took over the management from the Garcia-Escaño families in 2004.
The other issues are the unclear profit-sharing scheme in violation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) which will expire in 2011 yet, and the management’s alleged harassment and intimidation of union officers and members.
The union has the full support of the Associated Labor Union-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP), where it is affiliated.
Higher course
The union officers and members met at the ALU-TUCP office last night to define higher course of action. But there were no details as of press time about what took place at the meeting.
Mahilum said that if the management will continue to harass them, the 248 union officers and members will be forced to elevate their case to the Department of Labor and Employment (Dole).
He said that since the violations of the Veco management merit a strike, they have also the right under the Labor Code to file a notice of strike with the National
Conciliation and Mediation Board (NCMB).
If a notice of strike is filed, a cooling off period of 30 days is mandatory under the law for NCMB to conciliate and mediate. If nothing happens within this period, the union officers and members will conduct a strike vote to be supervised by Dole.
If the union can get two thirds of the votes of the total union members, this means the strike they will conduct is legal.
Ethel Taño Natera, Veco corporate communications manager, said there was no harassment or intimidation.
“We are hopeful that their subsequent actions will not disrupt operations. We maintain that the issues mentioned are internal and ought to be discussed in the proper forum”, Natera said.
Natera said their primary concern is to ensure that there’s no disruption of service.
“We have no knowledge of harassment. The issues they are bringing up have been discussed before and are open for negotiation in the next CBA (collective bargaining agreement) negotiation”, Natera said. (EOB)
