LCMC completes inking of CBA with supervisory union

May 7, 2017 Headlines

BAGUIO CITY – After the so-called Gina Lopez effect, its back to work for the Lepanto Consolidated Mining Company.

LCMC, one of the biggest gold mining companies in the country, just signed a two-year collective bargaining agreement from 2016 to this year with the Lepanto Local Staff Union this Friday at the Baguio Country Club.

The 180 members of LLSU joined the Lepanto Local Employees Union, the group of rank-in-file workers, in achieving industrial peace as the former also agreed on their own CBA last March 25.

Lepanto President and Chief Operations Officer Bryan U. Yap signed the CBA with LLSU President Steve Pomeg-as.

“The completion of our CBA bolsters my hopes for the continued healthy relationship between labor and management, and our mutual trust for each other,” said Yap.

“We hope that we can always amicably discuss all concerns and issues so we can concentrate on the more difficult task ahead – improving our efficiencies and increasing productivity,” he added.

“We negotiate because we want to improve,” Pomeg-as said. “We have thoroughly presented the highlights to our members last April 29 and they were unanimously accepted.”

Among the highlights of the 11th CBA are the lump sums in the first year and a wage increase in the second year as well as allowances in longevity and cost of living.

VP Knestor Godino, who negotiated with the LLSU, said that the negotiations wouldn’t have extended that long if not for the so-called Gina Lopez effect. Some of the workers were either demoralized over the impending suspension of operations upon order of the former Environment Secretary Lopez or they attended the demonstrations in Manila supporting the mining industry.

“The real CBA is in the implementation itself so were we negotiating for something that can be implemented? This will remain as cost if we don’t convert this to productivity,” he said.

Yap said that now that the CBAs were already signed, the company can now focus on their aggressive mining program due to the reopening of the energize copper mine and the quartz pyrite gold mine, now referred to as the copper-gold project.

On hand to witness the CBA signing were Baguio Mayor Mauricio Domogan, Labor Regional Director Exequiel Guzman, Gabriel Bayang of the National Conciliation and Mediation Board and Lepanto officials and workers. ABN