Philippines: Brave rights struggle continues at Mount Malarayat Golf & Country Club

Five years after the union at Mount Malarayat Golf and Country Club won legal recognition, management still refuses to recognize the union and respect the right to collective bargaining. Spirited protest actions outside the resort over the past two weeks successfully forced management into compulsory arbitration by the office of the Secretary of Labor. 

In 2010 workers at the Mount Malarayat Golf & Country Club in Batangas organized a union with the support of NUWHRAIN, the independent national union of hotel, restaurant and resort workers affiliated to IUF.  The union won a certification election the following year, securing legal recognition of the union’s right to engage in collective bargaining. Management reacted with a legal challenge that falsely claimed that all workers were casuals hired through a labour hire agency.

Management’s actions effectively denied Mount Malarayat Golf and Country Club workers access to their human right to unionize and bargain collectively for the next five years.

NUWHRAIN finally won a legal decision on September 24, 2015 that confirmed that status of the union and its right to collective bargaining, but it was only in early 2016 that the union officially received the legal order. The union immediately submitted its collective bargaining proposal to management, but management again refused to enter into negotiations. The union responded with protest actions that ended on June 11, when the Secretary of Labor ordered compulsory arbitration.

As management is forced into arbitration, workers at the resort move a step closer to finally winning their right to union recognition.