Amid economic crisis, more workers threaten to strike

Amid the prevailing economic crisis, more workers are threatening to go on strike due to labor disputes, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) reported yesterday.

Labor Secretary Marianito Roque, however, maintained that the country’s industrial front remains calm as majority of the notices of strikes and lockouts were immediately settled.

Records from the DOLE’s National Conciliation and Mediation Board (NCMB) showed a 13-percent growth in the recorded number of notices of strikes in the first 10 months of the year.

NCMB executive director Reynaldo Ubaldo reported that a total of 68,802 workers from 311 companies filed notices of strikes since January this year.

Compared to the same period last year, NCMB recorded a total of 276 notices of strikes, involving 61,066 workers nationwide.

But Roque noted that the NCMB settled the notices of strikes and lockouts in 351 establishments, thus preventing the disputing parties from declaring a strike or lockout.

Roque said more than half or 66 per cent of the total notices of strikes were settled as well as 76 percent of the preventive mediation cases filed with the NCMB.

“NCMB settled notices represented 98.87 percent success rate out of the 355 cases, which the board handled from January to Oct. 15 this year,” Roque added.

He further urged disputing labor and management to thresh out their differences by engaging in closer dialogue and collaborative undertakings to cushion the impact of the current financial crisis particularly at the plant level.

“Exhaust all means in the settlement of disputes to prevent strikes and lockouts that can certainly worsen the impact of the financial crisis to the economy,” Roque said in a statement.

He said only five strikes occurred in the country since January this year. The work stoppages affected the employment of 1,115 workers.

The same NCMB data further indicated growth in the number of preventive mediation from 370 last year to 374 this year. Affected workers, however, dropped from 80,194 to a total 68,124.

The DOLE chief also reported that a total of 7,388 workers received a total of P529 million in monetary benefits upon the settlement of cases involving deadlocks in collective bargaining agreements (CBAs).

Another 2,162 workers received a total of P188 million in separation pay and restitution packages in settled cases involving unfair labor practices.

The NCMB also settled 13 preventive mediation cases involving bargaining deadlock issues which benefited 1,354 workers who received a total of P101 million in CBA packages.