LABOR WATCH

SM Workers Decry Union Busting

As the country’s biggest chain of department store, Shoemart, announces its goal of building three malls a year, its own workers, who have been on strike since March, desperately seek ways to meet the daily needs of their families and stop the management’s alleged efforts to bust the union.

BY RONALYN V. OLEA
Bulatlat.com

In its refusal to give in to the demands of the workers, the SM management has resorted dirty tactics tantamount to union busting, the union charged.

In a roundtable discussion last June 25, Osie Gablanca, president of the Sandigan ng Manggagawa sa Shoemart (SMS), disclosed how the management has appointed a new set of union officers from president down to the branch level, despite a pending case with the labor department.

She related that the management called for a general membership assembly last June 21.  Its lawyers announced they no longer recognize the union officers manning the picketline and that negotiations have collapsed.  The management told workers the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) will lapse on July 25 and presented a P15/day wage increase proposal, with a P1,500 signing bonus.

Gablanca said the management practically coerced her co-workers to sign the proposal.  “The management also wants to divide us by sowing intrigue and false hopes among the workers. These are devious and desperate moves of the management since we have already achieved a level of success during our three-month strike,” explained Gablanca.

Gablanca said she and other union officers were also terminated.  But their term of office, she said, ends in 2006.

Most of those appointed as new officers are members of Iglesia ni Cristo (INC), who earlier were not recognized by the management as union members.

Their union dues were also cut off.  The SMS has lost its office.

Irony

SM’s lawyers said the union’s demand for a P40-wage hike was “unreasonable” and SM could not afford it.

The union president disproved this. Gablanca said Henry Sy, owner of SM, is known as the third richest man in Asia with P2 billion annual profit. Shoemart reported its newly acquired 2.1-hectare Meralco lot is worth P130 million in Sta. Rosa, Laguna, which would be the location of a new mall.  SM Prime declared that it hopes to build at least three malls in a year.

Meanwhile, a regular SM employee usually gets P331 per day. Only 2,000 are union members out of some 20,000 contractual workers in six branches. Gablanca revealed the management had been violating wage orders since 1991.

The union also fights for security of tenure for trainees and other contractuals, improved working conditions and other benefits.

Exposed

Gablanca said the workers were reprimanded for exposing Sy and SM management before the Congress.  The management has been summoned twice for massive contractualization and harassment in the picketline. 

A lawyer reportedly said during the general membership assembly, “Di na kayo nakuntento sa media, kinaladkad ninyo pa kami sa Kongreso! (You have not been contented with the media, you even dragged us to the Congress!)

Hard times

Maristel Garcia, secretary general of SMS and a mother of four, narrated how difficult it is to man the picketline, “We’ve been looking for ways on how to get by especially during the school opening.  Since we do not have enough funds for our children’s tuition, some of them have stopped schooling for this year.”

Garcia said some of them tried to apply for a loan from the Savings and Loans Association (SLA) but were refused because they are strikers. 

One of the workers has to leave the picketline at least once a week to go home to Quezon and work as magkokopra or one who harvests coconut for copra processing.  He has to earn a living somehow since his children now hardly eat regular meals and their electricity has been cut off.   Another works as a construction worker three days a week to be able to feed his four children. Yet another has to hop from one city hall to another, looking for a government scholarship that her children could avail of since she could no longer afford to pay for the tuition. 

Hope

Gablanca remains hopeful, “We have gained sympathy from all levels--from ordinary consumers to members of Congress. Even the media documented how the management brutally dispersed us.  Such moral support is the fire that keeps us fighting.”

Again, Gablanca called on the consumers, “Boycott SM!”  Bulatlat.com

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