Furniture workers union urges sincere negotiation

Members of the Mehitabel Furniture Workers Union urged their management to be “sincere in returning to the negotiating table.”

Zosimo Borja, president of the MEFWU, said it was only yesterday that the Mehitabel management expressed its intention to sit down after allegedly abandoning the negotiating table since February 10 this year.

Borja said it was their 11th weekly meeting for the proposed P5 increase inclusion of their Collective Bargaining Agreement.

“Tataw na nga taas ang presyo sa bugas ug uban pa. Malipay na lang mi kun matuman na ang P5 nga umento sa among suholan,” Borja said.

MEFWU is under the umbrella of the Alliance of Nationalist and Genuine Labor Organization-Kilusang Mayo Uno.

Citing data submitted by the management to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the workforce of Mehitabel, Inc., through their union, demanded a wage increase for the remaining two years of their five-year CBA.

From the original P50 proposed increase for the fourth year and P45 for the fifth year of the CBA at the start of the negotiation, MEFWU decreased the amount to P5-P5 during the 11th negotiation.

Since then, Borja alleged that the management panel did not sit down and did not even bother to submit a counter proposal.

“They are negotiating in bad faith,” Roxanne Omega-Doron of the National Council for Workers Rights said.

Doron said records from the SEC also showed that the company profited P144.8 million in 2004 and P74.7 million in 2005.

She said the company could well afford the proposed increase as this would cost them only P1 million covering majority of the more than 300 workforce.

Doron also said that Borja was called by the management yesterday after learning that MEFWU is staging a protest.

The management will accordingly return to the negotiating table in two weeks time since the owner will have to make a trip outside the country.

It was reported that Alphonso Pua, management’s alternate principal negotiator, commented earlier this year that the proposed increase was untimely.

Mehitabel Inc., a furniture company wholly-owned by the Aboitiz family, is a fifty-year-old business.

Its workers are composed of molders, framers, sanders, binders and polishers. Employees with the highest length of service have worked from 20 to 22 years. —Ferliza C. Contratista/MEEV