MANILA — A group of regular workers of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) filed a “Notice of Strike” at the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) in Manila on Tuesday.
According to Gabay ng Unyon sa Telekomunikasyon ng mga Superbisor (GUTS) president Charlito Arevalo, they are filing the notice over issues of unfair labor practices – as supervisors are carrying the workload left behind by dismissed contractual workers.
“As the highest form of collection action of workers, we are planning to hold a strike in the days to come as an expression of our extreme outrage against PLDT management’s move and maneuvers to circumvent the law and previous DOLE compliance order to regularize its workers and employees,” Arevalo said in an interview before filing the notice of strike.
He noted that the rehiring and regularization of the dismissed PLDT workers is the solution to their problem.
“Our demand is clear enough. That PLDT and DOLE must regularize all of these workers at the soonest possible time,” he added.
GUTS, which has some 3,600 members nationwide, is one of the four labor organizations of the telecommunications giant.
Last June, PLDT dismissed 12,000 contractual workers, mostly installers and repair and maintenance crew members. This contradicted DOLE’s order on July 31 to regularize its workers.
In August, the Court of Appeals stopped DOLE’s order directing PLDT to regularize 7,344 workers it hired from third-party contractors. (Ferdinand Patinio/PNA)
