Workers’ Picket at Dusit Hotel against Union Busting and Contractualization
MEMBERS of the militant Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP) held a picket-protest in front of the Dusit Hotel in Makati to express solidarity to the hotel supervisory union, who are preparing to go on strike in response to the dismissal of its president, Crisanto Ami.
Crisanto Ami was dismissed on trumped up charges of theft, involving a piece of Ferrero Rocher chocolate. The supervisory union, however, asserts that the management decision is an attempt to bust the union by removing its union president.
BMP national president Leody de Guzman said, “The dismissal of Mr. Cris Ami does not commensurate to his alleged transgression, if there was any, since the supervisory union president said that he followed company rules on provisions left by hotel guests”.
“The BMP and the hotel supervisory union alludes that the heavy-handed reaction is a retaliatory action to a DOLE investigation on labor contractualization practices by the Dusit management last May 16, 2016. In fact, as a sign of negotiating in bad faith, the management dismissed Mr. Ami on the same day that it concluded the collective bargaining negotiations with the supervisory union,” the labor leader added.
As the result of said inspection, the management was ordered to regularize 309 out of 382 casual employees and to pay P48 million to compensate for its underpayment to the aggrieved workers. Cris Ami requested for the said DOLE inspection. Several contractual workers, who have also been sacked, joined the picket and are calling for immediate reinstatement and payment of backwages.
The BMP challenges the Duterte administration and DOLE Secretary to prove their anti-contractualization stance in the Dusit case.
De Guzman expounded, “It has been more than a year since Duterte took oath as the most powerful man in the country. Yet his promise to end contractualization is yet to be realized. Action speaks louder than words. The Dusit case provides him the opportune moment to show his real position towards contractualization by compelling the management to reinstate Cris Ami, president of the hotel supervisory union and to regularize and reinstate the contractual employees”.
He concluded, “The inspections transpired before the Labor Advisory 10 and Department Order 168, which granted more power to DOLE labor standards inspections under the helm of DOLE Secretary Bello. Nonetheless the labor department must take full responsibility for its actions, which has caused the loss of livelihood of unionists who simply sought the help of DOLE in enforcing labor standards at the workplace”. #
