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Lepanto women, children step up support for workers’ strike

MANKAYAN, Benguet (June 17) — The striking workers of the Lepanto Consolidated Mining Company (LCMCo) received yet another moral boost in their struggle for wage increase and better benefits when their wives and children expressed their full support in a press conference at the Tubo picketline on June 13.

“We are the ones who budget the salaries of our husbands. We know that what they are receiving is not enough despite the labor that they render to the company,” explains Junita Farrong, a miner’s wife and an officer of the Timpuyog Dagiti Babbai iti Minasan ti Lepanto (TBML). The TBML members, together with their children, help man the five picketlines, she added.

Youth leader Salem Dilem expressed the Lepanto youth’s support in the strike.

“Our tuition fees are increasing, including the prices of goods, transportation, boarding house rent, among others. The salaries of our fathers cannot cope with these increases. We support them because we want to finish our education,” claims Dilem, who is a pharmacology student Baguio City.

Dilem appealed to the LCMCo management not to recall the school bus assigned for the children of the miners who are studying at the Lepanto Elementary and High Schools.

Non-remittance

In the conference, Lepanto Employees Union (LEU) officials claim that the company failed to remit the deducted Social Security Service (SSS) premiums and other deductions. These include the company’s deduction from workers, which they failed to remit to the workers’ cooperative and Savings and Loan Association (SLA).

LEU Board Member Lawrence Farrong, claims that the company had at least deducted from the workers a total of P9 million for the workers’ loan to the SLA, and P6 million deduction from the workers salaries to be remitted to their cooperative.

“Our coop has no more goods for its members because the company failed to remit the money. But these deductibles were already taken from the workers during their pay days,” explains Farrong.

Farrong also claimed that the company failed to remit their SSS contributions, which failed workers to acquire loans during emergency situations..

Lepanto losing?

The LCMCo management claims that it cannot grant the wage increase sought by the workers which has been already reduced to P29 daily increase for the first year, P29 daily increase for the second year, and P33 increase for the third year. Their reason is that their venture is losing.

Engr. Ernesto Laoagan, assistant resident manager of LCMCo, claims that the company incurred losses of at least P111 million from January to May this year. He also shared to the media that the company’s daily loss amount to some is P5 to P6 million daily since the strike took off on June 2.

The LCMCo official insinuates that their financial status is the reason for their non-remittances of the deductions they made from the workers and their failure to agree with the wage increase demanded by workers.

Lepanto earning billions?

The LEU, however, disputed the LCMCo claims of financial loss.

LEU Auditor Ronald Maslian cited that in 2004 alone, the company gained a net income of P2.59 billion. He claims that the company paid the workers only 7% or P183,237,600 of its 2004 net income.

LEU also claims that the officials and directors of the company earn P 18.3 million per year with P1.5 million 13th month pay for each of them. Augusto Villaluna, the resident manager, is included among the beneficiaries of the alleged fat salaries and benefits.

Farrong added that LCMCo is also the number one gold producer of Asia and the fourth in the world. The stable financial stability of the company is also manifested by the company’s engagement in several expansion projects – which included the Victoria Gold Project and the Teresa Ore, she added. # Arthur L. Allad-iw for NORDIS

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