Dismissed maintenance personnel from Adamson University (AdU) set up a picket outside the Manila campus premises on March 16, demanding reinstatement and regularization. The workers are janitors, carpenters or painters who have served in the university for as long as three years.
On March 2, 35 maintenance personnel were told to no longer report for work the following day. The dismissed workers belatedly read a memo for their dismissal saying they are terminated by March 6.
Roberto Hilario, maintenance personnel for 3 years in AdU, said they have heard talk that they would be dismissed by December 15, 2016. The rumors came true, he said, on January 14, when 12 of his coworkers were told not to report the next day. He was among those dismissed in March. The janitors decried this action of AdU as illegal dismissal.
“Ang ginagawa ng admin, pinapahina ‘yung pagkakaisa namin para di kami bumuo ng unyon, pero nairehistro na namin yung union sa DOLE, pero nairehistro na naming ito nung December 11 [The administration is purging our ranks so we would not form a union, but we have already registered our union with the DOLE by December 11],” shared Hilario.
The Unyon ng mga Manggagawa ng Adamson University (UMAdU) was formed and registered with the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) in 2016.
AdU administration released a memo for the community on the picketline, saying that the workers involved were once deployed to the university by the Caritas et Labora Human Resource Service Cooperative (Caritas et Labora). The service agreement between AdU and Caritas et Labora expired on March 16. In the memo, the AdU administration also held that the workers are not their employees and that Caritas et Labora continues to recognize its obligations to the workers.
The protests of the workers following the January dismissals exposed that Caritas et Labora is not registered with DOLE and have been committing “labor-only contracting” that is strictly prohibited by DOLE since 2016.
Workers stressed over many hearings held with the UMAdU, Adamson University and the DOLE that have not yielded clear and positive results for them.
“Samantalang tuloy ang hearing, wala kaming trabaho. Matagal nang mahirap makahanap ng trabaho. Paano ang kakainin ng mga pamilya namin? Kung hindi namin ito ipaglalaban ngayon, lagi na lang bang ganito ang buhay namin [While the hearings proceed, we do not have jobs. It has not been easy to find jobs. How would our families eat? If we don’t fight for this now, must our lies be always this way?],” said Hilario.
Hilario said the issue is not only legal, but also moral on the part of the 85-year old private Catholic university.
“Maganda naman ang performance namin, matagal na naman kaming naninilbihan sa unibersidad lampas sa sinasabi ng batas na kailangan nila kaming gawing regular. Bakit hindi kami gawing regular? Ang kalalabasan lang naman noon ay kikilalanin nila ang karapatan naming sa sapat na sahod at benepisyo, pero mukhang iyon ‘yung ayaw nilang gawin [Our performance is good, we have been serving the university longer than the law requires to make us regular. Why don’t they hire us as regular workers? The only outcome would be for them to recognize our rights to sufficient wages and benefits, but that is what they seem to be evading],” said Hilario.
