Salcon Power labor row: 'Give and take' not 'get and get'

CEBU, Philippines - The sooner the rank-and-file union leaders at the Naga power complex would decide on heeding Governor Gwendolyn Garcia’s appeal for them to call off their planned strike, the better for Cebu.

Alfredo Ballesteros, senior vice president for finance and administration of the Salcon Power Corporation and chairman of the management panel in the negotiations for the Collective Bargaining Agreement, issued this statement after Gaudencio Iso, president of the Salcon Power Independent Union, said that they will decide on the governor’s request in one week yet.

Ballesteros pointed out that it was the union which pulled out of the CBA negotiations amid pleas for the union leaders to “be reasonable” and to “modify their ridiculously excessive demands.”

He said that the union leaders should realize that negotiations mean “give and take” and not “get and get”.

“They should not also place a Sword of Damocles over the heads of Cebuanos and call the process negotiations. At the end of the day, the threat of the union to go on strike is not good for Cebu and that Cebuanos won’t support it,” Ballesteros further said. — Mitchelle L. Palaubsanon/MEEV (THE FREEMAN)