Job security for medical personnel in hospitals that are for sale

One of the most endangered groups of unsung workers in the country and elsewhere is the group of doctors, nurses, and para medical employees working in many hospitals, clinics, and medical centers. There is an emerging phenomenon of big business conglomerates in a buying spree of government and private hospitals. We just arrived from Baguio and we witnessed there some workers' agitation and concerted activities involving a government-owned medical institution, which is in the process of being acquired by a big business mogul who owns power companies, electric and water companies and telecom firms. There is also an on-going labor problem involving Filipino doctors and nurses in Daly City, where their hospital is being poised to be sold to a business conglomerate.

To the business taipans who acquire companies as if they are just buying tooth pastes, this is an ordinary course of business, where big investors would buy firms, improve them and sell them again, making huge profits in the process. These are the games that tycoons play, just like buying and selling of real estate. It is just business and business even without a social responsibility. But to the workers, this is their livelihood, the source of their means to survive and live, and the subsistence of their families, the education for their children, and the future of the working class. The workers are the small fries that are sacrificed when big investors play their games. The workers are the most dispensable factors to them, the pawns in the chess game of big-time business magnates. But the Philippine labor laws do safeguard the rights of these workers.

Here in Cebu, there is a family corporation, owned by a big family which traces its paternal roots from Cavite and maternal roots from Carcar, Cebu. This family is allegedly being beset by a very bad legal battle among siblings, children of the founders, and grandchildren who cannot seem to agree supposedly on the manner of running a university and a hospital. A big conglomerate, the same group that is buying the Baguio hospital, and owning medical centers in Davao, Metro Manila and elsewhere, is reportedly also poising to acquire this Cebu university and hospital. That, of course, is perfectly within the rights of the putative buyer to express interest in acquiring, and for the beleaguered family to consider. But the caveat is: They need to respect the job security of the workers. In playing their high stake games, they have to consider the livelihood of the workers. They could not have built these empires if not for the hard work and sacrifices of these small guys.

In case of corporate sales and acquisitions, in mergers and consolidations, the job security of the employees should not be sacrificed in the name of profit and business considerations only. The records show, and this writer is witness to these, that when Don Andres Soriano III acquired La Tondena from the grandchildren of Don Carlos Palanca, the Sorianos and the Palancas signed a ''blood compact'' to the effect that, among other covenants, the basic rights of the workers should be respected. That was also the tacit agreement when Petron was acquired by San Miguel and when PAL's major stockholdings and management powers were bought by the San Miguel group. In fact, even when Lucio Tan bought Tanduay from the feuding scions of Don Manolo Elizalde, workers' job security was also upheld. Other companies, including hospitals should keep that in mind.

When the  Bank of PI purchased Far East Bank and Trust Company, as well as when Banco de Oro consolidated the defunct PCI Bank and Equitable Bank, the workers' rights were duly respected. The same arrangements were done in the case of Pepsi Cola, when it was acquired by the Hong Leong Guoco Group of Malaysia from the family of Muro Lorenzo, father of Cito Lorenzo and Martin Lorenzo who in turn bought the Del Monte company in Bukidnon. When Pepsi was bought by the current owners from Guoco, and when Del Monte was in turn sold to San Miguel then to the Unilab group of the Campos, the workers were never sacrificed. The same is true when Mang Inasal was acquired by Jolibee and Pancake of the Lorenzos was bought by Max's.This is a tradition that is well-entrenched in our business practices, deeply rooted in the Filipino culture, and in fact, also protected by law and jurisprudence.

And so, those insecure workers both in Baguio as well as in Daly City, should be given an assurance, explicit and categorical, that their jobs will be secured. In the BPI-FEBTC merger, the Supreme Court held that it is the duty of the surviving bank to absorb the obligations of the non-surviving bank insofar as the workers' rights are concerned. Speaking through Justice Arturo Brion, '' the workers job security should not be left in a legal limbo''. In other words, the buyers and sellers of companies must include in their purchase covenant some concrete and specific provisions on what to do with the workers. They should not be dropped like hot potatoes, after spending the best years of their lives and careers helping taipans and moguls make huge profits out of the business. Businesses without social conscience do not deserve the patronage and loyalty of consumers and customers.

The welfare of the workers enjoy the full protection of a solicitous government, and is the supreme consideration, especially in a nation that aspires '' to build a just and humane society'' and under a government that claims to walk along the straight and narrow path of righteousness. Above all considerations, the workers' rights should be upheld. That is what really matters most. No more and no less.