Terminated workers opt to fight case in court

By GABRIEL LAHOC
TERMINATED PNG Taiheiyo Cement (PNGTC) employees have lost faith in the Department of Labour and Industrial Relations and will fight their case in court.
They have announced their intention to seek justice through the court system against the company.
A senior manager who was part of the batch of nationals who were terminated by the nation’s sole cement producer last November, has come out in support of industrial consultant Tom Vevo, saying they have exhausted all avenues and will now go to court.
The manager, who asked not to be identified, said the company was one of the top 10 cement manufacturers in the world and had failed to adhere to normal procedures and was being manipulative in its action.
He said several Filipinos who were sacked from KK Kingston and a construction company in Lae were employed by PNGTC in positions reserved for locals.
The company failed to offer any explanation and forced the workers to stage their protest.
All the locals stopped work on October 28 last year.
Between then and November 14, they sought the assistance of the department which failed to meet their needs.
They then engaged the services of industrial consultant Vevo.
Vevo said PNGTC was not a member of PNG Employers Federation and failed to comply with the Employers Act, Lae Common Rule Award, the Safety Health and Welfare Act, Workers Compensation Act and the Industrial Organisation Act which allowed workers to form workers unions.
“The Department of Labour and Industrial Relations has already been engaged but at the end of the day, they were not available to address our issues and help is not there, because there are corrupt officers in the department,” he said.
Through Vevo, the department secretary George Vaso sent two officers to Lae to deal with the dispute.
They spent one hour with the workers and left without reaching any resolution and had never submitted any report despite their promise to the workers.
“These officers have failed and our dispute still stands with 55 workers still out of job while the company has used a divide-and-rule tactic by re-employing 112 workers who were previously terminated,” Vevo said.
The 55 are the most experienced workers.