Bacolod City – General Alliance of Workers Associations (GAWA) secretary general Wennie Sancho dismissed the Notice Of Strike (NOS) filed by the CENECO Union of Rational Employees (CURE) as “premature” and “anti-consumer”.
Sancho disclosed that one of the grounds in the NOS is union busting, which is the dismissal of duly elected union officers, which would threaten the existence of the union, in which case the union could immediately go on strike.
He, however, said that the grounds for filing NOS is baseless because there is no union officer from CURE that had been dismissed from CENECO.
The claim of the union busting is therefore premature, he stressed.
This also developed as CENECO MCO (Member-Consumer-Owners) issued a Notice to Explain to all members of the CENECO Board, in connection of their decision to enter into a Joint Venture Agreement (JVA) with Primelectric Holdings Incorporated / Negros Electric and Power Corporation.
They claimed that CENECO board and acting general Atty. Arnel Lapore betrayed their mandate by signing the JVA.
The JVA plebiscite is scheduled on June 24 and 25, and July 1 and 2.
Lapore reported that the JVA plebiscite has been extended by two more days, set on July 8 and 9, in addition to the original dates.
In order for the JVA to be approved, it should have the concurrence of 50 percent plus one of the 210,000 member-consumers of CENECO.
On the other hand, Sancho, also the secretary general of Power Watch Negros Advocates, in a statement said CENECO member-consumers have been suffering from power outages for decades.
To expose them to more distress and inconvenience would be adding insult to injury, as the impending labor strike would be detrimental to the interests of member-consumers. (Gilbert Bayoran via The Visayan Daily Star, photo courtesy of Sunstar)