MikeLigalig.com

by Karl Allan Barlaan
Manila Standard Today

Two party-list lawmakers on Thursday sought the investigation of an American businessman who closed down his firm in Manila, leaving at least 416 employees with unpaid salaries and suddenly without jobs.

Bayan Muna Reps. Teodoro Casino and Neri Colmenares filed House Resolution 355 to investigate Lawrence Kevin Fishman, owner of Skytech Dental Laboratories, a prosthetics outsource firm.

They said senior officers at its Sta. Mesa office were merely informed by Fishman via e-mail from the United States last Aug. 24, saying the business was folding up on Aug. 25 “due to bankruptcy.”

The resolution noted that Skytech produced prosthetics for the company’s international clients and had laboratories in Vietnam and China.

The head office is in Los Angeles, California under the corporate name Trident Dental Laboratories.

In their filing, Casino and Colmenares said even Fishman’s executive vice president for Manila operations, Wilma Ledler, was surprised because their workers would be left without salary and separation pay amounting to at least P50 million.

She said Skytech accountables included back rentals of P1.7 million, P500 million in electricity bills and obligations to local suppliers.

“Whereas, the now jobless Filipino workers do not believe in Fishman’s claims that he was losing money since the company employed three shifts of technicians practically 24 hours a day,” the resolution said.

While scoring the malpractice of the employer, Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz has ordered immediate assistance to the displaced workers through Undersecretary Lourdes Trasmonte, National Capital Region Director Raymund Agramonte and his deputy Jeffrey Soriano.

“Our officers also discussed the prospect of the workers operating the company themselves since they have the equipment, the technology, the skills and the market to resume operations,” she said, adding that assistance could be channelled through the employees’ cooperative.

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