here is an article from SunStar.com's website, written by mr. Bobby Nalzaro.
WHILE some people have reason to rejoice and be happy this yuletide season, others will have a bleak Christmas and New Year.
Take Western Wats, an American call center located at the Mactan Export Processing Zone (Mepz) 2 in Lapu-Lapu City. Services of hundreds of the firm’s employees were terminated in early December and more will be cut before the year ends.
Established in 2003 with only 300 employees, Western Wats is one of the leading call centers in Cebu. It is under an executive management that belong to a big international religious denomination whose main headquarters is in Orem, Utah.
The firm has over 16 phone centers. Its Cebu facility is the only one outside North America and is considered the largest and fastest growing.
The decision to set up operations in the country was largely credited to the abundance of untapped human resources fluent in both written and spoken English. The Philippines is the third largest English-speaking nation in the world.
Cebu was selected as the center’s site because of the availability of college educated, English speaking local talents, as well as the advanced telephony infrastructure and geo-political stability.
The Cebu phone center is a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Wats and is exclusively dedicated to survey research. The center occupies three floors and employs more than 1,500 full-time employees that operate 700 interviewing stations.
But the company is in turmoil. Employees are confused why management decided to undertake massive termination of workers when its operation worldwide is doing well.
The employees are protesting the manner they were terminated. They claimed that most of them were caught flatfooted, as they were not given advanced notice. They reported for work in the morning only to be verbally informed later in the day that they were already terminated.
A bleak Christmas, indeed, for the affected employees. Worse, management refused to hold a dialogue with them and did not give categorical statement about the termination. The other employees are also demoralized, worried that they will be the next to be terminated.
While we welcome foreign investors to do business in the country and help solve our unemployment problem as well as propel our economy forward, they should not treat Filipino workers as if they are not human beings.
We are not questioning the decision of management because reducing the number of their work force is their prerogative. But I think company officials should be professional enough to tell the employees the real score about their termination.
Management should have done it in such a way that employees can also prepare financially and emotionally and look for other options and alternatives to assure their future. In terminating employees, there are rules to follow. It is not easy to look for a new job nowadays.
The drastic action is really unchristian. Mind you, the company's foreign executives belong to a well-respected religious organization using the name of Jesus Christ.
Can our political leaders and the labor department help the affected employees?
Mass termination in major call center
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