LEPANTO Consolidated Mining Company (LCMC), one of the country’s biggest gold miners, heaved a sigh of relief after the Commission on Appointments (CA) rejected the appointment of Environment Secretary Regina Paz "Gina" Lopez.
“Now, we can focus into aggressively developing our energite copper mine and quartz pyrite gold mine, referred to now as LCMC’s copper-gold project,” beamed LCMC president Bryan Yap during the signing of a two-year collective bargaining agreement (CBA) from 2016-2017 with the Lepanto Local Staff Union (LLSU) Friday at the Baguio Country Club.
LCMC was one among the mining firms ordered suspended by the DENR.
The 180 members of LLSU joined the Lepanto Local Employees Union, the group of rank-in-file workers, in achieving industrial peace as the former also agreed on their own CBA earlier on March 25.
Yap, who sealed the CBA with LLSU president Steve Pomeg-as, said, “the completion of our CBA bolsters my hopes for the continued healthy relationship between labor and management, and our mutual trust for each other.”
“We hope we can always amicably discuss all concerns and issues so we can concentrate on the more difficult task ahead – improving our efficiencies and increasing productivity,” he added.
Labor leader Pomeg-as, meanwhile, said the union wants negotiate because they want to improve. “We have thoroughly presented the highlights to our members last April 29 and they were unanimously accepted.”
LCMC vice president Knestor Godino, who led the mine firm’s negotiating panel, said that the negotiations wouldn’t have extended that long if not for the so-called “Gina Lopez” effect.
Some of the workers were either demoralized over the impending suspension of operations upon order of the former environment secretary Lopez or they attended the pro-mining demonstrations in Manila, Godino said.
“The real CBA is in the implementation itself so were we negotiating for something that can be implemented? This will remain as cost if we don’t convert this to productivity,” Godino added.
Yap said with the CBAs signed with their labor force, they can now devout their time in developing their copper-gold project. (Ace Alegre)