Digitel asked to reinstate sacked workers

CEBU, Philippines - Labor groups in Cebu are sympathetic with the workers of Digitel Telecommunications Philippines Inc./Philippine Long Distance Telephone who were terminated by the management.

“We condemn PLDT,” said Jose Tomongha, labor representative to the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board and chairman of the Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL).

Those who support the distraught workers, aside from APL, are the Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines and the militant Partido ng Manggagawa.

Digitel Employees Union legal counsel Virginia Suarez-Pinlac said that it is unfortunate that for a big company like PLDT that controls at least 80 percent of the telecommunications industry in the country refused to heed the order handed down by the Supreme Court and the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).

The protesting Digitel employees are demanding that the PLDT/Digitel management implement the final and executory decision of the Supreme Court last March 2013.

The SC order affirmed DOLE and National Labor Relations Commission’s 2006 directive which, among others, ordered the company to commence the Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations with the union and reinstate 13 employees dismissed in 2005 with full pay and full back wages.

Reuben Pangan, spokesman of Digitel/PLDT, in a report stated that the company cannot commence CBA negotiations because the union is already non-existent after Digitel/PLDT completed its redundancy program last March 15.

Pinlac said during the 888 News Forum yesterday that protesting workers staged a picket last April 10 and started to undergo hunger strike on April 16 but up to now, the management refused to heed the workers’ demand for reinstatement.

In a statement, the organized Labor in Cebu said that PDLT instituted a contractualization policy that block the entry of Digitel employees.

Under this policy, the Digitel employees were forced to accept termination on the grounds of redundancy./JPM (FREEMAN)