PAL union files notice of strike

By Paolo Montecillo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 16:55:00 11/06/2010

MANILA, Philippines – (UPDATE) Philippine Airlines employees have filed a formal notice to go on strike to protest the company’s insistence to cut 2,600 jobs despite its improving financial condition.
In a statement late Friday, the PAL Employees’ Association (Palea) said the notice before the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) was a bid to stop what the union called a mass “contractualization” of work.

The union also accused the airline management of negotiating directly with individual employees instead of coursing its concerns to the union leadership.

PAL spokesperson Cielo Villaluna said the airline’s legal department would be responding to Palea's allegations in the proper legal forums. She dismissed the union’s move as a “strategy to delay implementation of the flag carrier’s spin-off program that had already been recognized by DoLE.”
Villaluna also denied the claim that Pal management was “'directly negotiating' with union members,” saying that “management regularly conducts consultative talks only with Palea officials and not with the members.”

Palea warned that the strike would lead to a total disruption of the airline’s operations in the crucial fourth quarter of the year – usually one of the strongest seasons for PAL.

“We decided to file the notice of strike because of widespread and persistent attempts by management to convince union members [to accept the outsourcing plan] which, by law, is individual bargaining and constitutes interference to the right to self-organization,” Palea president Gerry Rivera said in a statement.

In the notice of strike, Palea cited unfair labor practice as its ground for calling the work stoppage. Specifically, the group complained of management’s individual bargaining with union members, the coercion of employees, the mass termination of union officers amounting to union busting.
This is the second strike notice filed by Palea this year. Last February, the union, representing more than half of the airline’s rank-and-file workers, threatened to go on strike after PAL management announced its plan to outsource non-core services. These include in-flight catering operations, airport services and call center reservations, affecting 2,600 employees.

PAL has argued that the plan would help the company cut costs and be more competitive.
Dole assumed jurisdiction over the dispute, which prevented PAL from pushing through with the outsourcing plan. The decision also kept Palea from mounting a strike.

The DoLE has declared the outsourcing plan as a legal exercise of “management prerogative.”
The notice of strike was filed around 5 p.m. Friday at the Intramuros office of the National Conciliation and Mediation Board.

Rivera disputed the Dole decision by saying that any retrenchment of employees should only be done as a “last resort.”

He argued that although PAL did lose over $300 million from 2008 to 2010, the airline already swung to profitability in the current fiscal year.

PAL has said the outsourcing plan would cost P2.5 billion in severance benefits. The company plans to borrow this money from government banks.

PAL also has an ongoing dispute with its 1,400 flight attendants, which are protesting an airline policy of retiring crew members by the age of 40. The case is currently being reviewed by the DoLE.