CLARK FREEPORT – Aggrieved workers numbering over 2,500 here agreed on Monday to defer planned mass actions against their employer.
This after, a meeting between their union leaders and executives of the Clark Development Corp. brokered by Angeles City Councilor Jesus “Jay” Sangil.
Rodem Perez, chief of the CDC customer relations department, heard the complaints of officials of the Smart Shirts (Phils) Inc. workers union against their management they identified as “couple Jeffrey, an American national, and Mercedes Gagnon, a US citizen of Filipina descent from Batangas.”
The union leaders charged the Gagnons of alleged unfair labor practices and maltreatment ranging from alleged refusal to recognize the workers union to non-recognition of workers benefits “including the Christmas package.”
“Management has curtailed all the privileges being enjoyed by the workers, even small ones like bringing “baon” to the work areas, which they confiscate under the pretext that they exceed the allowable volume,” the workers lamented. “We are even being denied of our periods of rest.”
The workers claimed the Gagnons treated them as “their subjects and not their partners, they are ruthless.”
Sangil earlier filed a resolution with the sangguniang panglungsod which was passed last week urging the CDC and the Department of Labor and Employment to look into the plight of the Smart Shirts (Phils) Inc. workers.
At Monday’s meeting, both Sangil and Perez pleaded with the workers not to resort to mass action or a strike so as not to derail business operation inside the Freeport and tarnish its image as an investment haven.
This, even as the CDC vowed to look into the problem of the aggrieved workers.
The workers said the American couple are “the only problem besetting the company” and could “possibly be sending wrong information to the Hong Kong main office.
“Ang suspetsa po namin baka hindi man alam ng mga incorporators sa Hong Kong ang ginagawa ng mag-asawang Gagnon dito na kaka-take-over lang last October,” said the workers.
Aside from investigating the workers complaints, the CDC said it would also look into the status of the Gagnons stay in the country, whether they have secured all necessary documents to work here.
Punto’s efforts to get the side of the Gagnons have failed as of presstime. The paper remains open to any reply from them.
