Workers protest for not receiving 13th month pay

CEBU, Philippines -  For not yet receiving the 13th month pay promised to them, more than 1,000 construction workers held a strike at the Cebu I.T. Park yesterday morning.

Member-employees of the Adventurer’s Multipurpose Cooperative (AMCOOP) who are working on the construction of the Avida Towers Cebu in Cebu I.T. Park did not report to duty and held a protest against the cooperative instead.

Albert Limbeg, who served as the spokesperson of the group, said that AMCOOP told them two months ago that they will be given their 13th month pay on the first week of December.

Limbeg said the cooperative promised them again last week that the incentive would be loaded to their bank accounts yesterday.

However, the workers did not receive such pay until late yesterday.

Limbeg said they decided not to work yesterday to find out what caused the delay of their 13th month pay.

The construction workers also lamented on the high deductions on their monthly contributions to Social Security System, Philippine Health Insurance Corporation, and Pag-IBIG Fund, but were reportedly not remitted by their cooperative.

Limbeg said they are also complaining on the unfair deduction from their salaries and questioned the labor cost being subtracted from their wages.

They further protested on the longer working hours that they are being required to comply with.

According to Limbeg, they are only supposed to work from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., but they are obligated to report to work an hour before 7 a.m., otherwise they will be recorded late if they come later than 6 a.m.

He added that if they punch out on their daily time record at exactly 4 p.m., they will be considered to have worked undertime.  

 AMCOOP operations-in-charge in Cebu Hernando Antonio admitted that they are experiencing a slight delay in the distribution of the 13th month pay.

According to him, a lot of paper works have to be done because there are 4,000 workers in Cebu alone and millions of pesos are to be disbursed to the workers.

 Antonio, nevertheless, said they will fulfill their promise to give the incentive to their member-employees as mandated by the government.

He guaranteed that the construction workers will receive their 13th month pay on Monday along with the dividends as members of AMCOOP.  

He added that the employees will also receive their salaries on Tuesday, which is normally given by the end of the week.  (FREEMAN)