By Modesto P. Sa-onoy
This is the first time I heard of a company withdrawing what it gave to its employees in order to help the company pay its debtors. As a worker’s message said, “this is not like the father.”
Indeed, when Ricardo Yanson, Sr. was alive we never heard of a strike and from within we know of his solicitousness for workers’ welfare. There were problems but not to the extent as to take away from the employees to pay for his indebtedness. I wonder why VTI is buying (on loans I presume) when it has billions and a large fleet of buses.
Let’s deal with the stoppage of operation in Victorias, the sores exposing the disease inside VTI under the control of the trio – Olivia Yanson and her children, Ginnette and Leo Rey.
Not only did the drivers and conductors complain about the deductions, but curiously they “are calling on the management to be transparent by reflecting in their payslips their ‘porsyento’ (share) in every trip.Other demands aired included clarifications on 30% reduction in their vacation leave incentives and the process on availing the six-day bonus.”
The demand is clear and pregnant with information of why the management is not recording the deductions in the pay slips of the workers which should have indicated how much each of them have contributed to pay the company debts. Not recording what VTI took away from the workers is tantamount to thievery, a cruel case of the rich taking away from the poor. This is an act that cries to heaven for vengeance!
That the workers raised this matter in public indicates their fear that there is no intent on the part of the VTI management to reimburse them of the 50% deductions. Indeed how can the company reimburse when there is no record of what VTI took from each worker? The process compounds the oppression.
The workers continued. “Amid the ongoing pandemic, we continue to risk our health in order to provide the needs of our families thus, we, drivers and conductors, are in unity to raise our good intentions on these issues.”
Indeed, they should remain united because their cause is just and there are many in VTI, lawyers and sycophants, who would intervene in this case to strike back at the protestors.
The news report quoted VTI Legal and Media Relations Officer Jade Marquez-Seballos saying the protest has not interrupted the trips and that though 32 bus units have temporarily stopped trips, available units at the north terminal in Barangay Bata, Bacolod City with the same routes were able to augment.
“Let it be repeated that the actions of some of the drivers and conductors in Victorias City are not shared by the entire population of the company’s drivers and conductors who, at the end of the day, would just want to provide for their respective families,” she said.
Marquez-Seballos explained that the decision to reduce by 50% the tripping allowance starting this month was made in consultation with the union leaders.
“This tripping allowance was given unilaterally last year as an act of generosity by the management,” she said, adding that “while some factions of the Victorias [route] drivers and conductors may not like the decision, most of the company drivers and conductors understand that, as members of one family, they need to do whatever they can.”
The spokesperson added that during the labor-management meeting, workers were made to understand that this is a temporary situation. Management undertook to restore this benefit by the end of March this year, she said.
On the transparency concern raised by the protesters, she said every benefit and deduction is all reflected in their payslips. Should any drivers or conductors wish to be clarified, they can always go to their union officers for explanation.
Let’s hold on a bit on that VTI explanation. If the management gave this allowance as an act of generosity, why take back half of it when the situation has not changed and in fact, there is a little easing of the restrictions on travel? Does a giver take back what he gave in generosity? What kind of generosity is that? Isn’t that hypocrisy!
Continued tomorrow.
