PRESS RELEASE
03 September 2014
A high-end café and restaurant
located at the heart of Malate district in Manila is getting the ire of organized labor
after its management sacked several workers upon learning of their move to
organize a union some few months back.
A picket led by Partido Manggagawa
(PM) was held today at the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) in Manila demanding the
reinstatement of Edaville Minoza, Jesus Porlas, Parsamson Hadjirul, Edgar
Pancrudo, Stephen De Leon, and Romy Castolo. All of them were dismissed
by the company in January and May of this year without valid reasons and
apparently for initiating the formation of a union which is a guaranteed labor
right.
According to PM, Hizon’s/ZA’s Café
in Malate is a cozy place where celebrities and Manila ’s VIPs come as regular guests.
But its workers, 54 in all, are unjustly treated by the company since the time
of their employment. Most of them had been working in the Café for more
than ten years yet they are not enrolled in the social security system,
Philhealth and Pag-ibig. They likewise are underpaid, enjoy no job security
and have no union representation.
“This company violates almost all of
the core labor standards. Thus the labor department cannot play deaf and
blind to this blatant breaches in labor rights,” said PM Chair Renato Magtubo.
A notice of strike, on the basis of
management interference, illegal dismissal and union busting, was filed before
the labor department by Hizon workers in January after the first batch of
termination. The case is still pending before the National Conciliation
and Mediation Board (NCMB).
Magtubo said the labor department
has the obligation to order the immediate reinstatement of Hizon workers as
their dismissal was clearly a retaliatory action by the management against
legitimate union activities.
He added that it is also the duty
of the State, the labor department in particular, to enforce labor law
compliance to all companies however big, powerful, or small they are.
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