Saturday, October 13, 2007 DCWD union rebuts management's claims
THE exchange of claims and accusations continue between the Davao City Water District (DCWD) workers union and its management.
This time it's the workers who are chiding the management for claiming that the plan to avail of a P126 million loan will not result to water rate increases.
The Nagkahiusang Mamumuo sa Davao City Water District (Namadacwad), in a statement e-mailed to Sun.Star Friday, criticized the "erroneous and misleading statements" maintained by the DCWD management regarding its P126 million proposed loan and decried DCWD General Manager Rhodora Gamboa's attacks against the union.
In an earlier statement, Gamboa claimed that its proposed P126 million loan will not result in an increase of water rates and that Namadacwad only "concocted the report since they (the workers) are demanding the release of the Collective Negotiation Agreement (CNA) incentive."
Rudy Aranjuez, chair of Namadacwad, a local affiliate of the Confederation for the Unity, Respect and Advancement of Government Employees (Courage), slammed the district's charges, saying it should face the issue instead of spewing malicious accusations against the union.
In the committee hearing at the City Council last week, the DCWD management was not able to satisfy the demand of city councilors to justify the multi-million- loan it intends to get from the Local Water Utility Administration. The loan is supposedly meant to fund the Comprehensive Mainline Replacement Program (CMRP) while it still has P376 million in savings.
"The fears of the consumers of Davao City are not without basis. The management is hiding the fact that under the policy and terms of LWUA prior to approval of loans, a guarantee of payment is needed through water rate increases. The interest of the payments alone will turn the district into a debt-ridden water utility. This is the reason why we are saying the loan will lead to privatization," Aranjuez said.
Aranjuez further criticized the management's allegations the union is opposed to the loan because the workers are only after their Collective Negotiations Agreement (CNA) incentives.
"In the first place, the management has no right to deprive the workers what is legally due them. It claims that there is no legal basis for the CNA incentive when PSLMC Resolution 2 clearly states that we are entitled to it," Aranjuez said.
The Public Sector Labor Management Council approved a circular mandating that all public sector unions that have concluded the CNA shall be given annual incentives.
The CNA between the Namadacwad and the DCWD was signed on May 26, 2006, a provision of which included the establishment of a CNA incentive committee to formulate programs for the determination of savings that shall given to workers as incentive.
"For more than a year now, we have earnestly and repeatedly asked the management to respect the guidelines of PSLMC resolution, as all other water districts in the country. Instead, the management engaged in delaying tactics, formed its own interpretations of the programs and guidelines and compelled the union officers to concede to a management's version that was prejudicial to the interests of the workers. It is not the union who has been reneging on the agreed CNA and violating the rules of the law," Aranjuez said.
"The truth of the matter is, while the consumers of the city pay for the previous mishaps of the district and the workers are being deprived of their rights, the Board of Directors, for all the wisdom they give to provide us quality water service, receive P12,000 per meeting aside from their salaries and all-expenses-paid trips abroad," Aranjuez added.
A consumer group in the city lambasted DCWD's alleged diversionary tactics on the issue.
"It seems that the management is making it appear that the campaign against the proposed loan is just an internal conflict between the management and the union who is also pushing for the implementation of their CNA incentive," Leon Bolcan, convener of Consumer Alert, said in a separate statement issued Friday.
Consumer Alert, an alliance of homeowners associations, environmental organizations, church groups, women, and other sectors against privatization and commercialization of basic services, started the campaign against the loan on June this year.
Consumer Alert also said that they are supporting the call of the DCWD employees' union because the workers' struggle for their CNA incentive is legitimate and has legal basis. (GLP/With press Release)
