Union president asks Veco to release his benefits

CEBU, Philippines - The union of the Visayan Electric Company urged the management to stop insisting that its union president is no longer an employee of the company and urged the management to release all the benefits withheld since November 2010.

VECO Employees Union president Casmero Mahilum, in a press statement, clarified that the order of the secretary of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) dated March 22, 2011 puts to rest the management’s insistence that he is no longer an employee of the company.

“It further proves that management’s withholding of 13th month pay, Christmas bonus, salary increase and all other benefits in the existing Collective Bargaining Agreement was contemptuous,” Mahilum said.

According to Mahilum, DOLE Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz in her order states: “by reinstatement in the Company’s payroll, Mr. Mahilum is restored to his previous position as a regular employee of the Company without loss of seniority rights and other privileges appurtenant thereto and is placed on equal footing with its other regular employees, insofar as entitlement to the benefits given under a Collective Bargaining Agreement is concerned.”

The union likewise assailed the statements made by VECO spokesperson Ethel Natera in a press release that the union’s partial motion for reconsideration relating to the payroll reinstatement of Mahilum was a delaying tactic so Mahilum could receive his salary without sweat.

The partial motion for reconsideration, Mahilum said, was to question the deviation made by Baldoz to the nature of status quo order she issued on November 10, 2010. (FREEMAN)