RP workers defy govt order
RP workers defy govt order
MANILA (Reuter): Striking workers of Philippine Long Distance
Telephone defied a government order to return to work and company
officials beefed up security around the company's main office in
Manila yesterday.
The three-day stoppage was prompted by what strikers said was
management's refusal to negotiate a new pay and conditions
agreement with the newly elected PLDT union leadership.
"Our reason is simple. We have not seen that the management is
sincere in facing us for negotiations on a new collective
bargaining agreement," union assistant treasurer Roger John Abad
said, explaining the strikers' decision not to return to work.
Abad said the strike would continue indefinitely.
The strikers, who also accused management of union busting,
said 15,000 workers had walked out. Management said only a few
hundred struck. PLDT has a total work force of 18,900.
The Labor Department on Friday night ordered the strikers to
lift their pickets and return to work within 24 hours. It also
asked management to accept them under the same terms and
conditions as prevailed prior to the strike.
Two dozen security guards armed with sticks and riot shields
took up positions outside the company's main office in Manila's
Makati district.
A union official said the extra security measure was
apparently in preparation for a show of force, which the strikers
plan for today, when several thousand unionists will mass outside
the Makati office to dramatize their demands.
Unionists said the strike, the second major stoppage to hit
PLDT in eight years, had paralyzed up to 90 percent of the
company's operations nationwide.
PLDT officials could not be contacted for comment. Clerk Tess
Galuma at the PLDT information center said they would not be
available until today.
A supervisor who answered a call to the company said
supervisors were handling PLDT's long distance operations.
They were being assisted by contractual and probationary
workers, according to independent checks.
PLDT's rank-and-file employees earn a monthly salary of 8,000
pesos (US$333), union officials said. The union is demanding an
increase of 9,900 pesos ($412) spread over three years.