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.