UST management and the UST Faculty Union (USTFU) reached an agreement on three provisions of a new salary and benefits package in a second meeting at the National Conciliation and Mediation Board (NCMB) on April 7.
USTFU President Emerito Gonzales said that after a review of previous negotiations, both parties agreed on benefits for faculty in the National Service Training Program (NSTP), lower emergency loan interest, and a timeframe to discuss 11th- and 12th-month pay.
NSTP facilitators will receive an additional P2,000 per term, while the emergency loan interest will be lowered to 4% from 6%.
“Gusto po sana natin zero [interest], pero hindi talaga so napababa lang natin. That’s minus three [provisions] already,” Gonzales said during the second union-led “solidarity night” at the Quadricentennial Park on April 8.
The 11th- and 12th-month pay will be brought up again in June when the proposed 2021-2026 collective bargaining agreement (CBA) enters renegotiation.
Among the remaining unresolved provisions, according to Gonzales, are the union’s demand for 100% hospitalization coverage and a P26-million rank upgrade and salary restructuring scheme.
UST management had offered to raise the hospitalization benefit cap to P150,000 annually plus P300,000 for critical illness, but the latter was conditional upon the faculty’s acceptance of the salary restructuring scheme.
Management negotiators wanted to get the P26 million from teachers’ legally mandated 70% share in tuition hikes, but the union insisted this be taken from other sources, saying UST was “more than capable” of funding its own proposal from its own pocket.
READ: No ‘stockpiled’ cash: UST says money reinvested in education, operations
Union and management negotiators have yet to reach a deal on the proposed increase in Christmas bonus, longevity pay, increased non-teaching vacation leave by two days, compensatory time off for junior high school (JHS) teachers, and unused sick leave conversion from 15 to 20 days.
READ: Faculty union demands release of 70% share in tuition hikes
Union chief ‘hopeful’ mediation will end before strike vote
Before the USTFU filed the notice of strike with the NCMB and triggered an industrial dispute on March 25, Gonzales laid down a tentative timeline with April 24 as the earliest possible strike vote.
This is if government intervention fails to produce a compromise within the 30-day conciliation period.
At the rate things are going, however, the union chief is hopeful a deal will be reached soon.
“Gano’n naman talaga. It’s fast; very fast,” he told the Varsitarian. “Although the 30-day span between notice of strike filing and the strike vote is running, it may not reach that. I hope so and I’m praying for that.”
A new CBA may also be expedited after the UST administration sought the intervention of the Secretary of Labor.
UST requested compulsory arbitration under the labor chief on March 26, a day after the union filed the notice of strike.
USTFU says UST seeking labor secretary’s intervention in dispute over salaries and benefits
Gonzales said he understood where UST management was coming from in petitioning the labor chief to assume jurisdiction.
“They are thinking of the welfare of the students. So kung halimbawa mag-strike kami bigla, if ever meron talagang strike, bago kami makapagsimula, nandiyan ang AJ (assumption of jurisdiction).”
Under the Labor Code, the Secretary of Labor has the authority to prevent a strike and assume jurisdiction over disputes affecting industries deemed essential and indispensable to the national interest and economy.
If this fails, however, the union may stage a strike as early as May 2.
Union and management officials are set to meet again for the third time on April 15 with the NCMB for conciliation and mediation.
