Wednesday, November 28, 2007 Maxey: Collateral damage By Ram Maxey Bar None
IT SEEMS that the laying off by Lapanday Corporation of 170 workers effective December 13, 2007 has not sat well with the non-governmental organization Interface Development Interventions, Inc. (Idis) which has accused the banana plantation management of "lying" in order to discredit the city ordinance banning aerial spraying.
Lapanday human resources manager Gerardo Ongkingco says the aerial spraying ban is only one of the factors behind the lay-off, the other being the company's longtime plan of converting the plantation into an industrial and residential area.
Ongkingco said that the 170 workers will receive the equivalent of one month's pay for every year of service to the company plus other benefits.
They got their walking papers last November 12 informing them of their termination effective one month later, December 13. At least they will have more than enough money with which to celebrate Christmas. What the new year (2008) will bring them is another question.
Any company reserves the right to lay off workers as long as the termination is justified and the laid off workers receive their separation pay in accordance with law.
A business firm cannot be forced to retain workers whose services are no longer needed. However, Lapanday ought to be more transparent in the case of the 170 workers by explaining to Idis what they were hired for in the first place and why they should now have to go.
It's as simple as that. Lapanday is not an adjunct of the Department of Labor and Employment or an employment agency.
Idis has been instrumental in the banning of aerial spraying in banana plantations hereabouts in its defense of what is calls the people's right to be free of alleged harmful effects of the chemicals sprayed that may reach their homes.
But for Idis to question Lapanday's decision to lay off the 170 workers is presumptuous. If the bleeding hearts in Idis really commiserate with the laid off workers' plight, why doesn't the NGO be more proactive and find them jobs instead of forever dwelling on negative issues?
Maybe I shouldn't have asked that question. After all, where will the Idis people be if they didn't pick a fight with agro-industrial firms like Lapanday to justify the NGO's existence to its foreign financiers?
That's why the word interventions is the second "i" in the name Idis. It exists to intervene in other people's affairs. For better or for worse? Where does intervention end and interference begin?
Going back to the unfortunate 170 workers who in two weeks will lose their jobs--how are they taking it? I won't be surprised if they feel bitter resentment towards Lapanday management for terminating them and sending them to join the swelling ranks of the country's unemployed.
But if they also feel that Idis may somehow be partly to blame for their termination, I wouldn't blame them either. They are probably the victims (okay, collateral damage) of the fight between Lapanday and Idis.
