Friday, October 05, 2007 Workers union may have other motives: water district By Carlo P. Mallo
DAVAO City Water District (DCWD) has raised their suspicion that its workers' union, Nagkahiusang Mamumuo sa DCWD (Namadacawad), has other motives in accusing the company of privatization and increasing its water rates.
The worker's union is just clamoring for the release of their Collective Negotiation Agreement Incentive (CNAI), which has yet to be approved by the management side of DCWD.
Namadacawad has accused the management of DCWD of scheming a P126 million loan to fund its Comprehensive Mainline Replacement Program (CMRP) when all it aims is to privatize the government owned and controlled corporation.
On Thursday, DCWD manager Rodora Gamboa said Namdacawad has been actually demanding for the release of the CNAI.
"This has been the reason why they are opposing our plan to borrow money to realize our CMRP," Gamboa said.
She said the grant of the CNAI came personally from the mouth of one of the members of the union, during the City Council committee hearing last week.
The Namadacawad has sought the City Council to make an inquiry on the plan of the DCWD to loan P126-million for its CMRP.
This means, Gamboa said the union is opposing the loan to get the CNAI that they want.
Gamboa said she already clarified to the union that they could not simply release the CNAI at this point since it has no legal basis and not in accordance with the Department of Budget and Management Circular 2006-001.
Gamboa said based on the policy guidelines of the circular the CNAI may be granted to employees as soon as an agreement will be executed between the representatives of management and the employees' organization.
The circular stated that the grant of the CNAI may be extended to employees who contributed to agency productivity and implementation of cost-cutting measures identified in the CNAIs.
She said as far as the DCWD management and the union is concerned, the above-mentioned guidelines of the budget circular were not met, thus such incentive can not be given to the employees' union.
She said the issues on privatization and water rate increase are out of context because the management and the board already gave their position that they are opposed to privatization and the P100 million loan will not result to a water rate increase.
Gamboa said there were already talks between the management and the union but this time it is premature to grant the CNAI.
"The CNAI will be given in due time. It's just that it has to be in accordance with the guidelines set by DBM" she said.
