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Lepanto unions gear for strike

MANKAYAN, Benguet (April 20) — Majority of the members of the Lepanto Employees’ Union (LEU) and the Lepanto Security Force Union (LSFU) favored to strike against the Lepanto Consolidated Mining Companies (LCMCo). The unions held their respective Strike Vote Referendums (SVRs) simultaneously on April 20.

Ninety five percent of the tota1 cast votes of 1,504 LEU members agreed to strike — 1,429 said yes to strike while 33 voted no to strike. Forty-two votes turned out spoiled.

Meanwhile, 99% of the total membership of the LSFU voted yes to strike. The union filed an NOS last April 18. The LSFU also announced a deadlock on their CBA negotiations with the management.

The LEU had a meeting with the management last April 16 in an attempt to solve their dispute but without a mediator from the National Conciliation and Mediation Board-Cordillera Administrative Region (NCMB-CAR). This is the second conciliation meeting after LEU filed a Notice of Strike (NOS) on April due to a deadlock in the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) negotiations.

The meeting between the union and management failed to resolve the issue, prompting union to push through with the SVR.

LEU and LSFU will be required to submit the result of their SVRs within 7 days. Picket lines may be set up 30 days since the SVRs have been filed. The 30-day cooling off period for LEU will end on May 5.

There will be a conciliation meeting between LEU and the management on Apr. 25 to try to resolve the dispute.

Should the strike push through, it would be the third workers’ strike inside LCMCo in a span of 53 years. The first strike was in 1951 where there were still no unions in the mining company, and the second in February 2003.# Aldwin Quitasol for NORDIS

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