Kapamilya network should reinstate dismissed workers, stop union-busting – KMU

“Even our fellow workers in the broadcasting industry, in a leading TV station at that, are now hit by ruthless lay-offs, union-busting, and contractualization schemes that have been plaguing the country’s labor force.”

Kilusang Mayo Uno chairperson Elmer “Bong” Labog said this as he denounced the recent constructive dismissal of 22 workers in ABS-CBN, including their union president.

ABS-CBN IJM (internal job market) workers have been forced to accept a change in employment status – a bogus “regular” status – to eventually dissolve the IJM “agency” and bust the union. The management has offered other changes in employment status before, and insists that IJM is a different entity from ABS-CBN, and thus they cannot recognize the union due to lack of employer-employee relationship.

But ABS-CBN IJM workers have long proven that their pay slips and other proofs of employment are directly under ABS-CBN management. IJM workers also comprise 1,400 or majority of the company’s workforce.

On Tuesday, Gabby Lopez himself issued the workers a deadline for accepting the regular status, or else they will be terminated.

Since that threat, work schedules for the 22 employees have been suddenly cancelled, and they were denied access to the equipment and premises of the company, according to news reports.

“On TV, it seems that the Kapamilya management is  true to their tagline, but in real life, they are job destroyers and union busters,” Labog said.

KMU also cited ABS-CBN management’s own pronouncements that their income grew nearly six-fold to P1.09 billion in the first quarter of 2010. An upsurge of political advertisements, consumer sales, and regular ads also contributed P667 million to their net income, a 249% increase from the last year.

“It was the workers who labored and made it possible for the Kapamilya management to amass such great earnings, but they reward workers with brutal treatment.”

KMU also learned that the ABS management are now hiring workers under a new agency, “probably to gradually outsource its entire workforce and thus deprive them more of their right to tenure and to form a union,” Labog said.

“We demand the ABS-CBN management to immediately reinstate the dismissed workers, and stop harassing the union. Otherwise our nationwide membership and the collective force of workers will contribute to shaming their much-protected public image.”