Quezon City – Conciliator-mediators nationwide gathered for the annual training course dedicated to honing their skills and addressing emerging challenges in resolving labor disputes. This year’s Specialized Training for Conciliator-Mediators was held on November 6-8, 2024, at the B Hotel in Quezon City. 

The training course commenced with a session with the National Electrification Administration (NEA) on the discussion of issuances relevant to the electric cooperatives and their employees’ rights to collective bargaining. The session aimed to equip the conciliator-mediators with adequate knowledge necessary in effective handling of the rising number of electric cooperative cases filed in the different regional branches.

Atty. Alexander Paul Rivera, Department Manager of the Institutional Development Department, shared several issuances released by the NEA that could affect the collective bargaining negotiations between electric cooperatives and their unions. 

The Board, acknowledging the crucial role of building strong foundational skills in effective and efficient service delivery, focused this year’s training on strengthening the fundamentals of conflict management, particularly option generation and persuasion. The second day of the training was dedicated to this endeavor. Befitting the objective, two (2) seasoned conciliator-mediators, now regional branch directors, were invited to impart their expertise and experience. 

Regional Branch III Director Othello Tongio refreshed the conciliator-mediators with concepts and techniques related to generating alternative solutions and establishing the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA). 

Group workshops were conducted for the conciliator-mediators to brainstorm over case studies and generate a pool of options to resolve the issues identified, applying their previous experiences in previous labor disputes and injecting new perspectives.

Regional Branch X Director Aerrine Marie Reyes highlighted persuasion as a core skill in conciliation-mediation. She explained that persuading the parties is more than getting a yes from them. More importantly, it is about building one’s credibility and promoting cooperation to work and resolve the conflict at hand. 

Director Reyes shared the basic concepts and techniques of persuasion. Like the session on option generation, the conciliator-mediators were tasked with analyzing case studies and applying what they had learned on persuasion. 

On the third day of the training course, a session on the newly developed information system for the Single-Entry Approach (SEnA) program was conducted. Mr. Ianne Go, Officer-in-Charge of the Research and Information Division, gave an overview of the system’s features and a brief walkthrough of the online process. 

The training course ended with a discussion of the issues and concerns on handling conciliation-mediation cases led by Deputy Executive Director Teresita Audea and a synthesis given by Officer-in-Charge Ligaya Lumbay. 

For more information about this article, you may email cmd_co@ncmb.gov.ph or call (02) 8252-6262 local 747.

END/ emmaquino