Nueva Vizcaya mining firm moves to avert labor unrest

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya  – A foreign mining company is offering an additional compensation package for its workers to avert a work stoppage following its reported failure to give in to their demand for a wage increase.

A company insider said the workers were demanding a P3,000 a month across-the-board increase, which is the only unresolved issue in their collective bargaining agreement negotiations with OceanaGold Philippines Inc.

As a result, some of the firm’s rank-and-file employees are threatening to stage a strike following the reported failed negotiations for the wage increase.

The employees, in their assembly last Jan. 20, voted to push through with their planned strike after OceanaGold allegedly failed to give in to their demand for a wage hike.

The workers’ union, Kiphodan, which filed a notice to strike with the Department of Labor and Employment last December, has about 80 members, or 20 percent of the company’s rank-and-file employees.

A local subsidiary of a Melbourne-based company, OceanaGold was contracted by the national government to undertake the multibillion-peso Didipio gold-copper project along the mountain boundary of Nueva Vizcaya and Quirino. 

The company started its commercial operation in May last year following nearly two decades of exploration and construction activities. 

Amid the planned strike, Brennan Lang, the project’s general manager, said they are currently in “deep talks” with the union to thresh out their differences, which also resulted from the firm’s ongoing cost-cutting measures amid the declining price of gold in the world market. 

“The company believes in the right to a legal and peaceful strike and will work in good faith with unions to avoid a strike and seek out a negotiated resolution to this matter,” he said.