Labor strikes decline in first 8 months of 2009

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) reported yesterday that only four strikes took place in the country during the first eight months of 2009.

Labor Secretary Marianito Roque said this was lower than last year’s record, adding that during the same period in 2008, five “work stoppages” occurred resulting in 79-percent reduction in productivity losses.

Citing a report from DOLE’s National Conciliation and Mediation Board (NCMB), Roque noted the four strikes lasted only for an average of three days as the NCMB “exerted all efforts to settle the strikes.”

“The decline in strike incidence is a testament to the stability of the country’s labor relations climate as workers threatening to declare work stoppages by filing notices of strikes with NCMB declined,” he added.

NCMB data showed as of Aug. 31, it had received 208 new notices of strikes filed by workers, representing a decline of 21 percent from the 263 new cases docketed during the first eight months in 2008.

“The fewer strikes notices also involved smaller number of workers from 48,651 in comparable period in 2008 to 44,436 this year,” he said.

The number of preventive mediation cases also registered similar decline as new cases docketed during the period dropped to 11 percent from 368 cases last year to 329 this year.

Roque had attributed the downtrend in conciliation-mediation cases to the “maturity of labor and management.”

“The two parties now opt to discuss their differences on the shop floor instead of fighting it out in the picket lines, or in the courts,” he added. –Sheila Crisostomo (The Philippine Star)