Makati Med workers mull strike

The rank and file personnel at the Makati Medical Center will hold a “strike vote referendum” today following yesterday’s protest in front of the hospital.

Makati Medical Center Employees Association (Mamacea) president Willy Pulia said the referendum will determine if the nearly 1,000 nurses, medical technicians, x-ray technicians, aides, clerks, and other rank and file employees will go on strike within the next few days.

In an interview with The Star, he said they are protesting the abrupt and questionable way by which 77 dietary department employees were dismissed last Jan. 30 without consultation and without at least informing the union. 

Pulia said the union is concerned by how those removed were made to come to work in the wee hours of the morning, only to be suddenly asked by a guard to come with him to a place where they were presented with the deal.

“We have a pending notice of strike at the DOLE – National Conciliation and Mediation Board (NCMB) but they did not wait for the hearing, which was supposed to be on Monday,” he said.

Pulia said he fears the hospital management will do it again since the same process was used to remove 17 employees of the cleaning and laundry department. 

Because all the dietary department employees were suddenly replaced, he said the hospital rehired 35 of the terminated personnel – but under an agency called Skyline Services.

Pulia said the union demands that in cases where the management needs to cut down on employees, early retirement programs should be offered.

The union is questioning the hospital’s cost-cutting measures that affect rank and file personnel, considering that the hospital is actually earning as evidenced by the bonuses given to employees last Christmas.

MMC president and chief executive officer Richard Ferrer said they “went through the legal means, we submitted notices at DOLE” prior to removing the employees.

Though the hospital is doing well financially, he said streamlining is still needed since the hospital actually came from “the brink of bankruptcy.”

“We still have about a billion pesos in loan. The bonus should be appreciated since our stockholders have not been receiving dividends. I think this management has been giving them the best. I fought for that special bonus for employees,” he told The Star. 

Ferrer said the employees of the dietary and the cleaning and laundry departments were replaced by personnel from a concessionaire because “there are better people to do food and laundry.”    – Michael Punongbayan