Galeo workers vote ‘yes to strike’

CEBU, Philippines - The workers union of Galeo Equipment and Mining Company-Alliance of Genuine Labor Organization recently voted “yes to strike” during their strike voting.

Dennis Derige, AGLO organizer for Visayas and Mindanao, with which the said union is affiliated, yesterday said out of the 120 union members, 96 cast their votes. A total of 95 voted yes while only one voted no to strike.

Derige said he already submitted the result of the strike voting to the National Conciliation and Mediation Board-7 yesterday and will wait for seven days from the submission of report before launching the strike.

“Within the seven-day grace period, we will be preparing for the strike. We are yet, however, to decide whether the workers will resort to a sit down strike or to stage a strike outside the company’s gate,” Derige said.

GEMC is located inside the premises of Carmen Copper Corporation in Toledo City.

GEMC is the contractor within the CCC mining site that hauls mine waste from the open pit mining site.

It can be recalled that GEMC filed their notice of strike last June 5 before NCMB-7, the day that 11 union officers were preventively suspended after the latter failed to render overtime work.

The union has accused the management of resorting to union busting.

GEMC failed on its bid to be the company’s bargaining agent after their certification election last March was halted by a temporary restraining order issued by the Court of Appeals.

Derige said the election dispute arose from an attempt by the Asiapro Manpower Cooperative to prevent the unionization efforts at GEMC.

He added that Asiapro is claiming that the GEMC workers are their members and thus exempt from unionization.  (FREEMAN)