SU, SUFA sign 2019 CBA
Members of the SU administration and SUFA sign the 2019 Collective Bargaining Agreement, November 28, 2022 at Silliman Hall: (L-R, front to back) Asst. Prof. Jonathan Te, SUFA president; Dr. Betty Cernol McCann, SU president; Atty. Karissa Tolentino-Maxino, chief negotiator of the SU administration; Rodney Teves and Asst. Prof. Dina Remoto, faculty members; Prof. Jane Annette Belarmino, SU vice president for Development, Enterprises, and External Affairs; Dr. Earl Jude Paul Cleope, SU vice president for Academic Affairs; Dr. Gloria Futalan, faculty member; and Dr. Mae Brigitt Berna Villordon, SU College of Arts and Sciences dean.
Silliman University (SU) and the Silliman University Faculty Association (SUFA) signed the 2019 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), November 28, 2022 after the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) resolved the labor dispute between SU and SUFA.
In an Order dated October 24, 2022, DOLE Secretary Bienvenido E. Laguesma resolved to grant SU faculty members a PhP600 salary increase per month for the year 2019-2020 and PhP1,400 per month for 2020-2021. According to Secretary Laguesma, “the salary increase shall retroact immediately after the date of the expiration of the third year of the 2016-2021 CBA.”
Aside from the salary increases, a rice allowance in the amount of PhP4,600 per year beginning 2020-2021 is also granted to the faculty.
SUFA had pushed for the DOLE Secretary to grant salary increases of PhP2,000 and PhP3,500 for 2019-2020 and 2020-2021, respectively, while the counter-proposal of the SU administration was PhP600 and PhP1,400 for the same period.
For the rice allowance, SUFA asked for PhP1,000 per month; the SU administration offered PhP4,600 per year beginning in the fifth year of the CBA (2020-2021).
The DOLE Secretary also ordered that the “existing computation of monthly overload pay using the denominator of 40 hours” and the “existing CBA provision in the retirement pay with the multiplier of 1.04 percent” be retained. SUFA had moved that the overload denominator be changed from 40 hours to 18 units, and the retirement pay multiplier be increased to 1.5 percent.
SUFA also pressed for a PhP100,000 gratuity pay. However, the DOLE Secretary explained that, while the “proposal of the Union on gratuity pay is ostensibly for the improvement of the retirement benefits of the academic personnel,” the “current multiplier of 1.04 percent of the retirement pay granted to the employees already exceeds what is provided by the Labor Code.”
The DOLE Secretary added that “given that the retirement plan assets are already deficient to cover obligations,” he “does not consider it appropriate to rule in favor of the Union at this time.”
As agreed with SUFA, the SU administration will give the benefits still due to the SU faculty under the 2019 CBA in three tranches beginning the November 30, 2022 payroll and up to the December 30, 2022 payroll.
Dr. Betty Cernol McCann, SU president, said during the CBA signing: “In the days ahead, it is my prayer that we continue to negotiate in trust and faith in each other’s goodness; that we always expect the best in us and others…For, after all, the resource that we are all talking about is a resource for all of us.”
McCann added: “I hope this will now give us more focus and energy to attend to the task at hand, and that is, to be [of] greater service to our dear old Silliman University.”
The labor dispute began in 2019 when SUFA declared a collective bargaining negotiation deadlock and filed a notice of strike.
Dr. Betty Cernol McCann, SU president, delivers a message during the signing.
