2011 had fewest strikes, Labor Department says

2011 has been the most peaceful for industrial relations with only two work stoppages recorded during the year, the Labor Department said last week.

Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz attributed the industrial peace to the reforms in labor arbitration and adjudication.

“The highly successful and effective conciliation-mediation efforts of the National Conciliation and Mediation Board have led to tempering the occurrence of actual work stoppages, thus maintaining a single-digit actual-strike rate for the past several years,” Baldoz said,

Conciliation and mediation, a Labor Department program started in 1988, is a mode of dispute settlement that brings together contending parties to negotiate and settle.

Baldoz said only two work stoppages took place from January to November 2011, which was 75 percent less than the eight strikes recorded in the same period in 2010.

“The two strikes occurred in the National Capital Region [Metro Manila] and in Region 3 [Central Luzon], while the rest of the regions were strike- and lock-out free during the period,” Baldoz said.

She said the two declared strikes involved deadlocks in collective bargaining agreements and resulted in man-days lost that nonetheless also declined, and by 89 percent to 3,828 this year from 34,171 last year.

“What is significant was that the [mediation board] disposed of the two declared strikes to achieve a 100-percent disposition rate,” Baldoz said.

This year also marked the single biggest settlement package of P2.8 billion in a conciliation case involving the collective bargaining agreement of International Wiring Systems Philippines Corp. at the Luisita Industrial Park, Baldoz said.

That brought to P4.1 billion the amount of CBA packages, separation pay and other restitution benefits facilitated by the mediation board, which helped 11,484 workers, she said. –Vito Barcelo, Manila Standard Today