ANGELES CITY—The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has called the management and union of Holy Angel University to a meeting on Aug. 19 in a bid to help settle a strike the union began on Thursday to seek higher salaries and benefits.
Geraldine Panlilio, assistant director of the DOLE in Central Luzon, said the parties were urged to “further discuss the issues and come up with mutually acceptable solutions.”
The Holy Angel University Teachers and Employees Union (Hauteu) has agreed to come to the meeting. The management was still finalizing schedule as of late Saturday.
The Hauteu did not join the conference arranged by the National Conciliation and Mediation Board (NCMB) on Friday due to reports that pickets near the gates of HAU would be dispersed, Hauteu president Edmond Maniago said.
Edna Marrizza Santos, assistant to the HAU president and chair of the management panel in talks for a new collective bargaining agreement, said she and several officials attended the NCMB conference.
Businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan chairs the board of trustees of HAU, a Catholic university run by lay people since 1933.
According to Maniago, negotiations that date back to 2012 reached a deadlock in January when management refused to recompute the incremental proceeds from tuition increases and additional benefits worth P5.4 million, a task requested by the teachers.
The management initially proposed to give P20.9 million to Hauteu’s 389 members and more than 500 nonmembers. The union demanded a review of the school’s profits, believing that the offer did not represent the proceeds from 70 percent of increases in tuition and other fees since 2010.
Memorandum No. 3 Series of 2012 of the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) requires colleges and universities to allot 70 percent of the school’s earnings for salaries and benefits of teaching and nonteaching personnel. Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon