AIM to professors: You’re no laborers!
Victor C. Agustin
Manila Standard
CLAIMING that its professors are not “oppressed laborers,” the Asian Institute of Management has vowed to fight a labor ruling that found the country’s premier business school guilty of unfair labor practice and violating the Constitution in its worsening row with the AIM Faculty Association.
AIM in a press statement accused labor arbiter Marita Padolina’s June 5 decision not only devoid of factual and legal basis, but also “sends a chilling message to international institutions and businesses seeking to do business in the Philippines.”
“Our counsel, the law firm of former [Labor] Secretary [Bienvenido] Laguesma, were very surprised [of the labor arbiter’s ruling] as they were very confident of the merits of the case,” AIM vice president for finance and administration Joaquin Montenegro said in a memo to the AIM community.
Even former Labor Secretary Nieves Confesor had been consulted by the AIM, chaired by accounting guru Washington SyCip, an American, about the management’s labor strategy, Montenegro added.
AIM said it will anchor its appeal to the National Labor Relations Commission on three grounds:
• The labor arbiter’s findings were based exclusively on the AIM Faculty Association allegations;
• Her decision did not independently discuss the truth or credibility of the unsubstantiated accusation, particularly the faculty’s almost P1-billion salary claim that AIM allegedly failed in over two decades to transmit to the professors under a Marcos decree allocating a certain percentage of tuition fee increases for faculty salaries; and
o The labor arbiter failed to mention any specific unfair labor practice under the law that was allegedly violated by the school.
In her decision, Padolina listed a series of academic arm-twistings conducted mainly by Dean Victoria Licuanan against nine leading AFA officers, including the denial of scholarship funding, denial of professor status, cancellation of course offering, and outright non-renewal of contracts.
The Licuanan actions apparently had the blessings of the AIM board, including vice chairman Bro. Armin Luistro, the president of De La Salle University who’s at the forefront of the anti-Arroyo good governance crusade.
AIM had been emboldened by the initial ruling of the Department of Labor and Employment when the faculty association lost the first round of hearings for certification election, on the ground that the AIM faculty members are “akin to managerial employees and are, therefore, ineligible to join, form or assist a labor union.”
“The Institute’s faculty members, including the AFA’s officers and members, are by far, the country’s best-compensated educators—not oppressed laborers,” AIM said.
(Web site: www.cocktales.ph; E-mail: cocktales_mst@pldtdsl.net)
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