Mimosa workers brace for strike
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 07:46:00 01/05/2009
Filed Under: Strike, Labor, Tourism
CLARK FREEPORT—The Association of Clark Mimosa Employees (ACME) has braced for a labor strike starting possibly Tuesday, posing disruptions to the operations of the 315-hectare Mimosa Leisure Park, this free port’s tourism jewel.
The work stoppage is likely to happen as ACME is submitting to the National Conciliation and Mediation Board on Monday the result of the strike voting it held on Friday, Acme president Reynaldo Geron said on Sunday.
At least 465 members voted to strike, one voted “no” and two ballots were spoiled. More than 100 members who went on vacation did not attend the voting.
Geron said the voting was legal because the NCMB approved its holding.
Former Rep. Gregorio del Prado of the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines observed the process.
Acme’s lawyers and NCMB officials will finalize the date of the start of the strike, Geron said.
Only an effort by the state-owned Clark Development Corp. to talk to Acme leaders and settle the dispute through a negotiation can stop the strike plan, he said.
“It is really best for Acme and the CDC to enter into a dialogue. But CDC officials were the ones who provoked us to go into a strike. In the last 90 days, we have agreed to their many requests to wait and call off whatever our plans are because some investors were coming. But they broke all their promises,” Geron said.
The supposed undelivered promises were the granting of a 14th month pay and a performance bonus.
These workers used to be employed by the Mimosa Leisure Park under former Tourism Secretary Jose Antonio Gonzalez.
The CDC absorbed their employment starting Dec. 1, 1999, or almost a year after the CDC, on orders of then President Joseph Estrada, took over the tourism estate over unpaid leases by Gonzalez.
After the takeover, Geron said the CDC had forced them to sign contracts lasting three months, renewing these for the same length of time. On the ninth year, the short-term contracts were expanded to six months.
At the core of the issues in the protest are security of tenure and benefits.
“The CDC is a government corporation but it does not give to us the benefits due state workers,” Geron said.
The CDC would have fixed the labor problem if the bidding for the privatization of Mimosa went through in October, said CDC president Benigno Ricafort.
Waterfront Philippines won but another state-owned firm, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., demanded that it pay first the P350-million debt Gonzalez owes before it is given a permit to operate the Mimosa Casino.
Ricafort had refused to carry Pagcor’s term into the bidding’s terms of reference because this would compel the CDC to accept the debt payment demands of private firms running after Gonzalez.
Ricafort said he would enter into a dialogue with Acme leaders “if they would treat me like a human being.”
In a recent Christmas party, he said they treated him “like an animal” by surrounding him and pressuring him to grant their demands.
The union, according to Ricafort, is not recognized.
The strike can paralyze most of the operations at the estate as Acme members work at the Montevista Hotel, the golf course and the maintenance of the whole resort. Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon
|
