VECO union workers send strike notice to management

The Visayan Electric Company Employees Union-Associated Labor Union-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines filed a notice of strike against the VECO management before the National Conciliation and Mediation Board.

ALU-TUCP legal counsel Jose Boquecosa, Jr. said the notice was meant to stop the management from hiring contractual workers and terminating the regular employees.

Michael C. Mendoza, ALU-TUCP area vice president for Visayas, said the act of the VECO management was illegal as it slowly terminates regular employees and replace them with contractual employees.

Mendoza said the management is resorting to labor-only-contracting, which is an illegal act since contractual employees are performing jobs done by the regular employees.

"It is public knowledge that VECO employees are receiving high salaries, that's why the management wanted to get rid of these regular employees," Mendoza told The FREEMAN yesterday.

Ferdinand Jumapao, ALU-TUCP operations director, said only about 180 of VECO's more than 400 rank-and-file employees have remained because of the labor-only-contracting scheme.

Ethel Natera, VECO spokesperson, said they would not issue any statements on the matter because they still have to receive the official copy of the notice.

Natera, however, assured that the relationship between the management and the union employees remains normal.

Natera said that in VECO's 100 years of existence, it is only now that a notice of strike has been filed against the management.

Based on the notice of strike, VECO-EU president Manuel Cabahug Jr. accused the VECO management of violating Article 248 of the Labor Code for interfering with restraining or coercing employees in the exercise of their right to self-organization, contracting out services or functions being performed by union members when such will interfere with restrain or coerce employees in the exercise of their right to self-organization, interfering with the administration of a labor organization, and violating a collective bargaining agreement. - Mitchelle P. Calipayan