Despite disruptions caused by workers demanding payment of salaries, an official of the Smartmatic-Total Information Management assured the public that preparation for the automated elections in May is still “on track.”
Smartmatic-TIM general manager Ellie Moreno said that its third party manpower service provider, Ventures Link, was able to resolve the issue “quickly.”
“Smartmatic immediately reached out to the workers and sought clarification from Ventures Link. The issue was quickly resolved between the third party contractor and the workers in less than 24 hours,” Moreno said.
As of Friday, he said, the workers who staged a rally and refused to work after not receiving their wages from Ventures Link are now paid and are back to performing their tasks.
On Thursday, Smartmatic voters’ education head Karen Jimeno admitted that workers at the Commission on Elections warehouse in Sta. Rosa, Laguna protested non-payment of their wages from its contractor during the March 31 payday.
“When salaries were not paid yesterday [Thursday], some workers refused to work and stayed outside the warehouse. Some were vocal with their complaints,” Jimeno said.
Moreno said that Ventures Link has assured the workers that such incident will not happen again.
“Smartmatic holds its contractors to high and strict standards of compliance and quality service, and we have been assured by our contractor that such an incident will not happen again,” he said.
“Nonetheless, Smartmatic has contingency measures in place to ensure that operations will not be disrupted by issues or events caused by its contractors or third parties,” he said.
The Sta. Rosa warehouse is where the Comelec and Smartmatic are manufacturing the 97,000 vote counting machines to be used for the elections in May.
