Luisita refinery workers to finally get wages

TARLAC CITY — After almost a year of negotiations, the management of the Central Azucarera de Tarlac (CAT), which runs the sugar refinery at Hacienda Luisita, is set to pay the wages and benefits of its striking workers starting next week.

Lawyer Vigor Mendoza, legal counsel of the CAT management, told The STAR in a phone interview that representatives of both sides sat down last Saturday to thresh out some final details in implementing the writ of partial execution which Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas earlier had issued.

Under the writ, the CAT was ordered to pay its workers a total of P8,829,281.29 in wages and benefits due them prior to the strike at Hacienda Luisita on Nov. 6 last year.

"It’s just now more of an administrative thing because we still have to bring in the accounting staff that will manage the payments," Mendoza said.

He said the CAT’s administrative employees had to be laid off since the strike crippled the company’s sugar refinery.

Sto. Tomas issued the writ last Aug. 11, but the CAT management filed a motion for reconsideration, citing financial constraints, among other reasons.

In the three-page ruling, Sto. Tomas ordered the sheriff of the labor department to "levy the amount upon the personal properties of CAT, which are not exempt from execution" should there be no immediate payment of the workers’ wages and benefits.

"And if the personal property of the sugar refinery is not enough to cover the amount, the real property of CAT shall be levied upon," the writ further stated.

Mendoza said the CAT management is similarly negotiating with the labor union to lower the amount due each of its members.  

The CAT management and the CAT Labor Union (CATLU) were ordered to "incorporate" in the fourth and fifth years of their 2001-2006 collective bargaining agreement a daily wage increase of P15.

The wage increase shall be retroactive to July 1, 2004. In addition, the CAT management is also ordered to pay each employee a lump sum of P12,500.

The CAT filed for bankruptcy in 2003, citing a drop in sugar prices in the local and international markets and the lack of fresh investments to allow it to recover from its losses.

Mendoza, however, expressed hope that all the kinks would be ironed out within the week despite the financial difficulties besetting the CAT even before the labor dispute paralyzed the operations of its sugar refinery.

"Once the workers are paid, the owners can now look into the possibility of starting operations again," he said.

In the past weeks, only the striking members of the United Luisita Workers Union (ULWU) of Hacienda Luisita Inc. have been manning the picket lines.