The strike staged by employees of the Holy Child Hospital in Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental, yesterday morning was lifted in the afternoon, after the union and management agreed to wait for the decision of the DOLE Bureau of Labor Relations on the disaffiliation petition that the employees filed.

Noreen Nuico, president of the Holy Child Hospital Employees Union-Associated Labor Union-Trade Union Congress of the Philippine, said that after more than four hours of emergency conference initiated by the Tripartite Industrial Peace Council and the National Conciliation Board, both parties agreed to a status quo.

This means that protesting workers will be back to work at 7 a.m. today, after the management and union agreed to wait for the decision of the BLR.

ALU-TUCP district officer Felizardo Calimpong said this was the first time in Negros Oriental that three notices to strike have been lifted to exhaust all avenues so that the patients will not be at jeopardized.

The employees are asking that the Collective Bargaining Agreement be registered with the Department of Labor and Employment, and for management to remit their union dues, he said.

He said that when the first notice to strike was filed, both parties came up with a compromise agreement witnessed by DOLE and NCMB representatives, but the management failed to implement it.

In the second notice, it was agreed that both parties wait for the decision of the mid-arbiter on the disaffiliation case. When DOLE lawyer Jose Ogang resolved the case and recognized the union as legitimate, the hospital management only deducted the union dues but did not register the CBA with DOLE, Calimpong said.*JG

back to top