An employees union has asked the Quezon City court to stop the reorganization that will take place at the National Food Authority (NFA) which is expected to let go of over 1,000 jobs

In a 39-page petition filed Wednesday, Sept. 23, the NFA Employees Association (NFA-EA), which is the sole representative of the around 3,600 rank-and-file NFA employees nationwide, asked the court to issue a temporary restraining order or a permanent writ of injunction that would stop the NFA reorganization being unlawful.

“It is unfortunate that more than a thousand employees of the National Food Authority are at risk of losing their jobs due to the passage of the Rice Liberalization Act and its implementing Rules,” read the petition.

“The record of the case will show that the Union was not properly consulted in the restructuring process of the NFA, in violation of existing law, guidelines, and the existing and binding Collective Negotiation Agreement between the NFA and the Union,” it added.

On the other hand, the NFA-EA assured that the petition is not questioning the power of the government-owned and controlled corporation (GOCC) to reorganize.

However, it pointed out that “the GOCC must not go beyond its stated legal basis, and it is imperative for the concerned agency to implement the restructuring in good faith and with full regard to substantative and procedural process.”

“In the NFA’s case, apart from going beyond the provisions of the law and the IRR (implementing rules and regulations), the restructuring undertaken by NFA’s Management did not ensure a proper, genuine, and meaningful consultation with its employees, as required by the rules and jurisprudence,” the union lamented.

“On the contrary, NFA’s Management deliberately excluded the Union and prevented it from participating in crucial parts of the restructuring process,” it added.

Among the violations it cited, the union pointed out that the Rice Liberalization Law’s implementing rules and regulations (IRR) “made no mention of any Restructuring of the NFA…”

“Granting for the sake of argument that the IRR, which appears to have rose higher than its source, is valid, it is readily apparent that the NFA proposed a Restructuring Plan that went beyond the IRR,” it stressed

Though Rice Liberation Law abolished NFA’s commercial and regulatory functions, the NFA-EU said the restructuring abolished hundreds of plantilla positions “that are not even part of the regulatory functions of the NFA.”

Aside from this, the union said the decision to come up with the restructuring did not follow the Government Commission on GOCC (GCG) Guidebook on reorganizations and violated the existing and binding collective negotiation agreement between NFA and the union.