HACIENDA LUISITA — Militant union leaders at the biggest foreign-owned company inside the Cojuangco-owned Luisita Industrial Park (LIP) here declared victory after only barely half of their colleagues voted for their ouster as officers of one of Central Luzon’s biggest labor organizations.

In a "confidence election" that was overseen by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE)’s Bureau of Labor Relations (BLR) in order to resolve the protracted labor conflict at the Japanese-owned International Wiring Systems (IWS), exactly 1,583 members of the IWS Workers’ Union (IWS-WU) voted in favor of ousting the militant faction of the union led by its president, Norlito Pamposa.

However, since the IWS-WU is composed of 3,680 members, this was short of 257 votes in order for it to comply with the mandated "50 percent plus one" votes and for it to take effect.

"In principle, and even in legal parlance, this means our victory, the victory of genuine, militant and patriotic unionism," said Pamposa.

Pamposa and 44 other officers of the IWS-WU were "impeached" from office last November 15, a day after they have signed their collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with the company’s management.

He and his militant colleagues accused the management of having instigated the impeachment proceedings against them, which resulted to the installment to the IWS-WU leadership of allegedly pro-management officers led by the union’s "provisional president," Berlie Velasco.

But DOLE earlier ruled against Velasco’s assumption to the IWS-WU’s presidency, stating that the signature campaign against Pamposa’s group was not binding since the mandated practice of unseating union officers under the country’s Labor Code is through secret balloting.

The IWS management was further warned by DOLE of "untold consequences to industrial peace" should it continue to tolerate the rift within the union.

In order to resolve the impasse, DOLE-BLR decided to hold the "confidence election" in order to determine if indeed majority of IWS-WU’s members wanted to oust Pamposa and his group from office.

Pamposa said that his group is hopeful that the DOLE will affirm their legitimacy as IWS-WU’s officers.

"The law is clear," he added. "They needed more than 50 percent vote to unseat us, and they failed."

Pamposa further said: "Hopefully, the IWS management will recognize the workers’ sentiments that they want genuine, militant and patriotic leaders to lead them, and not subservient, pseudo-unionists who are only after their promotions through boot-licking the management."

He added that DOLE officials should also be wary that the IWS management "may again instigate another round of divide-and-rule tactics. We should not allow the management to once more divide the ranks of its workers so that it could only pursue its anti-worker policies." Rachelle Tayong, with Sablee Bulaon and Abner Bolos