THE president of Carmen Copper Workers Labor Organization (CCWLO) yesterday assured Carmen Copper Corp. that there will no labor dispute in the next two years following their signing of a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with the company.
The agreement was signed by CCWLO president William Ligutan, his fellow union officers, Carmen Copper Vice President for Administration and Support Roy Deveraturda and management officers. Officials of the National Conciliation and Mediation Board (NCMB) attended the activity.
The CBA, which named CCWLO as the sole and exclusive bargaining agent for Carmen Copper’s rank and file employees, was signed pursuant to the workers’ right to self-organization as provided for under the Bill of Rights in the 1987 Constitution.
Ligutan and Deveraturda said the CBA is good for five years, from Jan. 30, 2015 to Jan. 30, 2020.
“This is the pride of the union. With this feat, we are able to prove that we are a responsible union, that we protect the common interest of our members and the company. Through education, we are able to inculcate discipline among our members and reduce abuses while we continue to look after their well-being,” Ligutan said.
Mia Carmela Magsaysay-Cuenco, Carmen Copper assistant vice president for human resource administration, said a grievance machinery and arbitration procedure is embodied in the CBA to help resolve grievances in the workplace.
Carmen Copper, Deveraturda said, has 2,444 employees, 1,453 (59 percent) of whom are rank and file employees and members of the union.
With the healthy and harmonious relationship between the union and management, Deveraturda said peace has been maintained in the workplace since 2015.
Management’s prerogatives, he said, are also exercised with consideration to the workers’ rights to just and humane conditions of work.
With the CBA now on its third year, Ligutan said that Carmen Copper’s management and the union are negotiating for a possible increase in workers’ wages in the next two years.
He pointed out, though, that the management has recently increased the workers’ average salary by 66 percent, with some of them already receiving an P80, P90 or P120 a day increase depending on the workers’ expertise.
By September 2018, Ligutan said, Carmen Copper will again provide a P25 across-the-board salary increase.
Carmen Copper is one of the largest mining companies in the country operating on metallic mining and mineral exploration development. It is located in Barangay Don Andres Soriano in Toledo City and is a subsidiary of Atlas Consolidated Mining Corp.