The Bacolod Our Lady of Mercy Specialty Hospital Employees Union filed a notice of strike before the National Conciliation and Mediation Board yesterday on the grounds of unfair labor practice due to union busting.

Union president Roberto Villaram said they filed the notice due to continued termination of hospital workers after they won the certification of election in February.

The lawyer of BOLMSH, Roger Reyes, said filing the notice is premature and illegal because the union has no valid grounds and the hospital has no collective bargaining agreement with them.

Villaram said the management terminated 47 workers since December last year and replaced with contractual workers.

Reyes, however, said this is a continuous cost-cutting process of the management for the hospital to survive and that they have been doing this before the union was organized.

He said the termination is done by department, the first was with the janitorial services and then the dietary section. This was not done on the whether the worker signed for or against the management, he said.

However, Villaram, claimed that the latest termination of their officers and members showed the ill motive of the management not to recognize the union and to wipe out union officers and members.*LTG

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