CLARK FREEPORT Labor Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma has issued an assumption of jurisdiction order in response to the ongoing labor disputes between Clark Development Corporation (CDC) and its workers.
This, after scores of employees belonging to the Association of Concerned CDC Employees or ACCES held a general assembly during their lunch break on Tuesday, January 17 to oppose the implementation of the Compensation and Position Classification System CPCS issued by the Governance Commission for Government-Owned and Controlled Corporation (GCG).
As the CPCS is implemented, the CDC employees stand to lose P493 million worth of benefits.
In his order dated January 16, Laguesma directed CDC “to put in escrow in favor of the employees concerned such amounts corresponding to the difference in monetary values between the GCG-approved CPCS and the CBA.”
Laguesma said his office, through the DOLE Legal Service, and the National Concialiation and Mediation Board, “will exhaust all remedies to arrive at a solution mutually acceptable to both parties.”
Employees of the state-run corporation have been trying to reclaim their work benefits.
The group has asked President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. To intercede and settle the labor dispute inside the freeport which will affect more than 600 rank and file workers.
ACCES said among the allowances, benefits, and incentives to be discontinued are health coverage, retirement plan, cost-of-living allowance (Cola), housing, utilities and transportation allowances, the Meritorious Service Pay (MSP) based on length of service, and the retirement package or separation pay that is also based on the length of service, according to the workers' groups.
The Clark employees said these benefits were granted on the basis of Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs) since the inception of the union in 1997.