WITH Labor Day only a few days away, Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Lloyd Dino urged Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña against creating further division between workers and employers.
Dino suggested that the mayor avoid drawing a dividing line between the management and labor, or between the rich and poor, which might lead only to confusion or unruliness.
“What Tommy is doing is inciting a social class war, which is very dangerous. In fact, it is as bad as terrorism, or even worse,” he said.
The Duterte administration, Dino said, believes the lives of the poor should be uplifted but not through creating chaos between workers and their employers.
Last February, the presidential assistant also urged the mayor to avoid “anti-business and anti-poor” actions. At the time, Filinvest Land Inc. had just announced it would rescind its contract with Cebu City on the sale of land in the South Road Properties.
In March, the mayor also said he did not agree with the move to end all contractual employment, adding that he didn’t think it would be doable. Instead, he said, government should help factories and export zones secure exemptions from labor laws.
In the same interview yesterday, Dino also called for an investigation on “syndicated labor arbitration.”
“I know there’s a mafia going on with arbiters and lawyers, and it’s very dangerous. I experienced that before and I hope it will not happen to others. I’ve heard about a lot of things happening like that,” he said. Other government agencies, not necessarily the Office of the Presidential Assistant, may initiate an inquiry, Dino said.
“There’s no company that has no labor case. But when you have a labor case, it does not mean you are a labor oppressor. Only that the mafia is out to blackmail the company. Let us avoid syndicated arbitration if we want industrial peace,” he said.
When a business bogs down in an area where that supposed mafia operates, investors will bring their investments somewhere else, Dino said. The alleged syndicate behind the filing of labor cases also gets the biggest portion of settlements. Dino said he will talk with Department of Labor and Employment 7 Director Exequiel Sarcauga about the matter.
