The TSI-Sepco fight; the BSP-BF fight

LABOR DAY has come and gone, but hundreds of promo merchandisers formerly employed by manpower service agency Temps & Staffers Inc. (TSI) remain unpaid for salaries and benefits due them, almost a year after they were given their walking papers.

These promo merchandisers (“promo-disers” for short) have been employed by TSI to work for Samsung Electronics Philippines Corp. (Sepco), the local distribution and marketing arm of the giant Korean manufacturer. “Promo-disers” are those salespersons who attend to customers at appliance stores.

When Sepco and TSI had a falling out last year, these promo-disers were left without work because of a “no work, no pay” clause in their contracts.

Twelve of these promo-disers filed a complaint against TSI with the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC). Their statements are revealing. They claimed that TSI refused to release their remaining salaries for the period June 19-30, 2010, refused to release their cash bonds, their 13th month pay covering Jan. 1-June 30, 2010 and their tax refund.

TSI offered to pay their last salary and cash bond only upon execution of the “cessation of work form.” TSI also prohibited the workers from seeking employment immediately after the termination of their services. (How are they going to feed their families?) They were threatened with legal action if they sought employment with other agencies.

“Should you continue to work in your respective assignments for Samsung after June 30, 2010, unless advised accordingly, you will be considered in violation of your Contract of Employment with TSI. Such violation will not be tolerated by TSI and will be acted upon accordingly,” TSI’s letter to the workers warned.

The complainants are now claiming that TSI has refused to release their benefits and back pay, including their tax refunds and their P15,000 cash bond, despite the fact that the law is clear on such cases. The issue of the tax refund, for instance, is clearly stipulated in BIR Regulation 10-2008 Section 3 (b) on Annualized Withholding Tax Method that says: “in case of termination of employment before December, the refund shall be given to the employee at the payment of the last compensation during the year.”

The issue on the 13th month pay is likewise stipulated in the labor department’s Memorandum Order 28 which says: “The payment of the 13th month pay may be demanded by the employee upon the cessation of the employer-employee relationship.”

The plight of the hundreds of ex-TSI employees who were forced to sign the work cessation forms is the same. TSI’s bitter rift with Sepco has spilled to its promo-disers, who were forced to either sign the waivers or just go their sorry way.

Why punish the poor promo-disers? If TSI is really the responsible recruiter that it claims it is, then it should treat its workers with a little more respect and not use them as bargaining chips.

The issue is particularly painful for hundreds of the promo-disers in the provinces. TSI has reportedly pulled out its provincial representatives because some promo-disers in the Visayas and Mindanao can no longer contact them. These were the same people whom the promo-disers claimed had contacted them last year to distribute the waivers. Without anyone from TSI to talk to, these promo-disers are finding it next to impossible to claim their benefits and refunds.

Will the Department of Labor please do something for the poor workers?

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The fight in the media between the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and Banco Filipino (BF) is getting more bitter. BF seems to be desperately fighting for its reopening and its life and the BSP seems as desperate in having BF closed and closed forever.

Two months after that day of March 17, 2011, when officers of the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) swooped down on the BF offices and announced that the Monetary Board had placed the bank under receivership due to insolvency, BF has loudly launched a propaganda drive questioning every act of the BSP and filing many lawsuits.

Will the owners and officers of BF continue to fight this hard if it was in fact insolvent? A look at its financial records will easily show whether or not it is insolvent. The one and only legal basis for closing a bank is the test of insolvency. Even charges of unsound banking practices do not have a bearing on a bank’s closure. These would be met by regulatory punitive measures but not immediate closure.

On the other hand, after BSP shut down BF, BSP had its own publicity campaign to justify its action. Being an institution that should be beyond reproach, the BSP should simply have been quiet, confident of its decisions and owing no explanation to the public except to the courts of law.

Every so often, BSP has had to announce in media various unsound banking practices that BF supposedly has committed. Business columnists were furnished information that should have been highly confidential.

So what gives? Is BF solvent or insolvent? That is the main issue, in fact the only issue.

The Supreme Court came out with a definitive ruling on a bank’s insolvency in the case of BF v. BSP (204 SCRA 767). The BSP lost in that case. The real estate assets of BF were shown to be worth more than the liabilities of the bank. The SC said that the basis for the evaluation of assets to determine insolvency is the “prevailing market value” and not the “book value” of the assets.