NAMADITFI: A Chronicle of Militant Workers Struggle

Nagkahiusang Mamumuo sa Davao Integrated Transport Facilities, Inc. (NAMADITFI)

DOLE Registration Number. R1100-0608-UR-255

Company : Davao Integrated Transport Facilities, Inc.

Address : Wharf Drive, San Pedro, Panabo City

Industry : Hauling services for export products of DOLE Stanfilco

Total Workforce : 290 Regular : 262 Contractual : 25

Union Members : 189 Supervisory : 70+

Male : 260 Female : 12

 

 

NAMADITFI-Federation of Democratic Labor Organizations (FDLO) was the union of rank-and-file workers in DITFI that entered into a five-year collective bargaining agreement (February 2002 – February 2007) with the management and its mother company, DOLE Stanfilco. NAMADITFI, being chartered, did not have an independent registration from the Department of Labor and Employment.

 

The workers knew that although DITFI was legally their employer, it is DOLE Stanfilco that called the shots regarding the operation of the company. Their uniforms were from DOLE Stanfilco; their daily time records had headings of DOLE Stanfilco; their certificates of completion of safety courses were from DOLE Stanfilco. All the while, the workers knew that DITFI was just a dummy company for the transnational corporation.

 

The CBA negotiations in 2002 was wrought with delays, deferment and indecisiveness on the part of the management panel because its members could not decide on issues unless they call up top management personnel of the DOLE Stanfilco.

 

Struggle against yellow unionism

In September 2005, during the course of the renegotiation of the economic provisions of the CBA, the workers learned of the conspiratorial activities of FDLO with the management to sell off their CBA. Following a series of concerted protest actions and demonstrations inside and outside the company and despite the periodic refusal of the management to negotiate, the workers were able to secure a raise in their wages and benefits. The yellow federation FDLO, however, has proven itself to be pro-management during the course of the negotiations.

 

In August 2006, the workers decided to register their union to secure its legal independent personality. However, two months earlier, in June, the workers have already decided to disaffiliate from the FDLO. The papers for disaffiliation were already being readied by the officers and by September 2006, an overwhelming majority of the workers have already ratified the disaffiliation from FDLO. Finally, amid pressure from the management and divisive tactics of the FDLO, the legal papers for the disaffiliation were submitted to the DOLE in January 2007, well within the freedom period before the CBA was to expire.

 

The disaffiliation and the independent registration were held legally in two separate orders from the DOLE.

 

The independent registration and the subsequent disaffiliation of NAMADITFI from FDLO legally rendered NAMADITFI as the sole and exclusive bargaining agent of the workers of DITFI.

 

Military’s active intervention

Around this time, members of the military were already hot in the trail of the officers of NAAMDITFI. They went on houses of some workers and visited companies adjacent to DITFI and warned workers not to be influenced by communist officers of union. Their companies allowed military personnel to hold “forums” that openly vilified NAMADITFI and Kilusang Mayo Uno, to which NAMADITFI is a regional council member.

 

Non-uniformed men who introduced themselves as members of the military barged into the houses of NAMADITFI officers and warned them to cease their union activities or suffer the consequences.

 

Unfair labor practice

In February 11, 2007, the CBA between the union and DITFI expired. Two months before this, the union, in exercise of good faith bargaining, submitted its proposal for the new CBA and submitted the same proposal again on February 19, 2007. Instead of furnishing the union of its own counter-proposal, the management engaged in delaying tactics, refused to release the union’s monthly dues and invoked a nuisance petition to the orders of the DOLE by the FDLO.

 

The union refused to succumb and sacrifice the immediate negotiations for the CBA to the legal maneuverings of FDLO and the management. The workers continued to conduct lunch-time pickets and demonstrations, conduct education drives regarding the issue confronting the workers and wear black arm bands to protest the refusal of the management to go back to the negotiations table. The union continued to follow-up on the management’s CBA counter proposal and requested the immediate scheduling of the negotiations. On July 24, the DOLE released an order dismissing the petition of the FDLO against NAMADITFI and directed the management to commence the negotiations for the CBA.

 

The management and the union met for the first round of negotiations in August 21, 2007. The ground rules for the negotiations were discussed but the management refused to take up the issue of Effectivity of the CBA in the discussion of the non-economic issues. The union, fearing the management might deadlock the negotiations this early, agreed to defer the issue in the next meeting. Both parties agreed to set the next round of talks on August 28.

 

However, the management again refused to go back to the negotiations table. Citing unfair labor practice for delaying the negotiations for the CBA, the union filed a preventive mediation case at the National Conciliation and Mediation Board on Sept 13.

 

On September 25, the management refused to attend the second hearing of the preventive mediations case and reasoned that the FDLO filed an appeal to the DOLE’s July 24 order. Since the first negotiation in August 21, the management neither returned to the negotiations table nor expressed interest in ever bargaining with the workers.

 

 

Arbitrary, unjust announcement

On October 7, 2007, the management posted notices at the company premises that there will be a general assembly of all workers at MariaClara Restaurant, some meters away from the company, the next day, October 8. The notice only bore time, place and date but did not mention the agenda of the general assembly.

 

The following day, October 8, the workers gathered at the venue of the assembly at around 8:00 in the morning. At around 10:00, DITFI’s human resource manager Deogracias Mocam and the company’s legal counsel Jonathan Jocom arrived with representatives from the Department of Labor and Employment. Representatives from the DOLE who were present during the assembly were Atty. Lito Jasa, Milagros Gutierrez and Atty. Quirino David.

 

After the usual introduction of the panel before the workers, Mocam announced that the company will start paying the length of service of the workers until November 8 because the company was closing. The pronouncement came as a shock to the workers who did not expect the company to declare closure because negotiations for the CBA were on-going.

 

Noel Morales, president of (NAMADITFI), asked Atty. Jocom and Mocam of the grounds of the management’s decision. He stressed that there were processes before a company could declare closure and that DOLE representatives knew this pretty well. Neither the members of the management nor the representatives from the DOLE clarified the point raised by Morales. The representatives from DOLE said that they were only told to come because there was a general assembly. They were not informed beforehand that DITFI was closing.

 

Failing to hear justification, all 144 rank and file workers and more than 60 supervisory personnel who were present during the assembly walked out of the venue. They later saw that the company has already put up steel bars to barricade the entrance of the company.

 

No closure, essentially

The afternoon, the workers decided to mount their picket outside the company’s container yard to protest the arbitrary “closure.” The workers said that essentially, no closure happened because the operations at the container yard continued. The refrigerated vans, cold rooms, chassis and under chassis, that were vital equipment to the company’s operations were still being used. The management hired outside haulers in lieu of the retrenched drivers to haul the export products of DOLE Stanfilco. On October 10, 2007, at around 11:30 pm, DITFI and DOLE Stanfilco violated highway regulations when it allowed a 70-ton heavy KALMAR Reach Stacker to traverse the national highway from Wharf Drive in Panabo to TEFASCO Port in Ilang, Davao City. A team of military men accompanied DITFI personnel during the transportation of the reach stacker.

 

The company beefed up its security personnel at the entrance of the container yard. Every day since the company declared “closure,” military men and members of the Philippine National Police entered the company or frequented the picketline of the workers.

 

Meanwhile, DOLE Stanfilco immediately washed its hands clean of its responsibility to the workers. As Mocam and Jocom were announcing DITFI’s closure in Panabo City, DOLE Stanfilco held its own press conference and declared that it was “severing its contract” with DITFI due to the P7 million annual losses incurred by the latter in its operations. Personnel from DOLE Stanfilco said that they were “clearing their name” early to avoid being dragged in the consequent controversy of DITFI’s closure.

 

The workers deemed the “closure” as nothing but the management’s means to bust their union. Their immediate demands is for the company to give their jobs back and go back to the negotiations table for their CBA.

 

Until now, the workers are still in peaceful demonstration outside DITFI’s premises as hauling trucks and refrigerated vans enter in and out of the company like it was business as usual.