06/09/2012 (Business Mirror) - 300 rank-and-file workers of a palm-oil firm in San Francisco, Agusan del Sur, will finally get their benefits amounting to P5 million after the parties finally agreed to resolve their long-standing deadlock in the collective bargaining negotiations.

Labor Sec. Rosalinda Dimapilis-Baldoz said Filipinas Palmoil Plantation Inc. (FPPI) had complied with the department’s decision to settle their differences in connection with the local union’s collective bargaining agreement (CBA).

 FPPI, which started its operations in 1981, is engaged in palm-oil production, milling, processing and supply, with a plantation area covering 8,000 hectares, 6,500 of which are planted to palm trees.

“At last, the company has seen and realized that the objective of the DOLE [Department of Labor and Employment] is not merely to afford full protection to labor nor ensure solely the success of the business of the employer, but rather, to harmonize the conflicting positions of the parties with the end view of maintaining industrial peace and social justice founded on the recognition of the necessity of inter-dependence between the employer and employees that should be equal and evenly protected,” Baldoz said.

Baldoz made the announcement after receiving the report of DOLE Caraga Regional Director Ofelia Domingo that FPPI has fully complied with DOLE’s order issued on February 4, 2011.

In the said decision, the DOLE compelled the FPPI Workers Union and FPPI management to execute within ten days from receipt of the decision a CBA for the period  January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2011 containing the dispositions rendered in her order.

The FPPI Workers Union is a duly registered labor organization and the sole and exclusive bargaining representative of the FPPI’s rank-and-file employees, particularly the field workers, such as harvesters, carriers, weeders and uproot workers, spray men and women, and road workers, among others.

With the company’s compliance to her order, Baldoz said P5 million in CBA benefits will now accrue to over 300 rank-and-file workers covered.

The benefits include wage increase, rice subsidy, life insurance and school-bus allocation.

On June 16, 2010, the FPPI workers filed a notice of strike on the ground of collective bargaining deadlock and unfair labor practice.

The FPPI management initially refused the workers’ proposal in the CBA pertaining to economic provisions for the remaining two years of its CBA and on the proposed ground rules for CBA negotiation, saying these were unreasonable, unfair and unrealistic. 

Baldoz said the DOLE decided to assume jurisdiction over the labor dispute considering that FPPI is one of the biggest private employers in Agusan del Sur and that the palm-oil industry is regarded as the “sunrise” industry in the Caraga region, which accounts for 53 percent of the total palm-plantation area in the country.