Buenavista Plywood Corporation
The Problem The problem confronting Mr. Antonio Garcia, the Plant Superintendent of Buenavista Plywood Corporation is how to deal with the absentee rates of the employees from Bohol such that the production of the plant will operate at capacity, with adequate workforce and the interests of the company and employees be served.

Objectives More specifically, the problem resolves itself into the following objectives which Mr. Garcia has to achieve in the course of action he has to take: 1. To maintain a stable and reliable workforce; 2. To protect the company’s reputation by avoiding confrontation with formal union groups; 3. To address production problems and costs; 4. To meet the rated capacity of the plant; 5. To safeguard the long-run profitability and stability of Buenavista Plywood Corporation.

Situational Analysis The Buenavista Plywood Corporation was organized in Cagayan de Oro City in 1950 by the Santiago Family. Don Jose Santiago, the present head of the family, was well qualified to carry the traditions of this prominent family. The Santiagos have been involved in politics in nearby Bohol, the ancestral home. They had been pioneering industrialists in the plywood business. Don Jose had been an early advocate of local processing of lumber as opposed to the shipping of log abroad. VISTAWOOD, the trademark chosen for their plywood, was one of the first export plywood production in the Philippines. Late in the fall of 1960, at a time when the plant was operating at capacity, working three shifts a day, some representatives of a national labor organization gained the allegiance of a large group of workers to establish a union at VISTAWOOD. Over the period of several months, the union activists who were assigned to the logging concessions left the company at their own initiative. These events marked