Editorial: When striking workers get no sympathy

Business Mirror
SUNDAY, 02 OCTOBER 2011 20:29

IF the striking and soon-to-be (if not already) jobless workers of the PAL Employees Association (Palea) wanted some sympathy for their cause from the public and the government, then the 11th-hour strike they staged on Tuesday was the wrong way to go about it.

We have no argument against the right to strike, which is guaranteed by both the Labor Code and the Constitution. Union workers are free to take any peaceful steps to try to accomplish their objectives. They can hold rallies, picket lines and strikes. They can try to persuade their employers to give in to their demands by any lawful means. They can even ask consumers not to patronize or to boycott their company.

We agree that the right to strike is, at times, not only necessary but the only way workers can publicize their labor dispute and engage the help of the government and the public to their cause.

But while we do not take it against Palea to hold protest actions against PAL for the airline’s decision to close down and contract out essential activities that would render 2,600 of its members jobless, we also cannot agree with the manner it did so on Tuesday.

Striking is one thing but where, how and when it is conducted is another matter. When the strike compromises not only the convenience but the very safety of the public then it is not only objectionable but simply wrong, because such actions already interfere with the rights of others as provided by law (like the right to life, the right to travel).

Last Tuesday some 300 members of Palea, the flag carrier’s union of reservation clerks, maintenance crew, caterers, cargo handlers and load controllers, abandoned their posts at about 7 a.m., thereby stranding hundreds of departing and arriving passengers, even as Typhoon Pedring was raging outside the Centennial Airport Terminal 2, and battering not only Metro Manila but a large swathe of Luzon.

In the story he filed, our veteran aviation reporter Recto Mercene said scores of local and international flights were unable to take off, while a similar number of just-arrived airplanes were marooned on the tarmac, with their pilots unable to park properly after Palea members deserted their jobs.

The airplanes were unable to proceed to their proper parking berths due to the absence of ramp marshals—persons who direct the pilots to avoid collision with other aircraft or objects on the ground not visible in the cockpit.

Palea members even argued and had a scuffle with personnel of the Airport Ground Operations Division who tried to guide the stranded pilots to their parking berths so that the taxiways and ramp areas are not filled with stranded aircraft.

Typhoon Pedring was already posing enough dangers as it was, couldn’t Palea members have postponed their protest actions for another day for the sake of public safety? At a time when people were dying and billions in damage was being lost due to the storm, couldn’t Palea members have set aside their personal concerns for job security to ensure the security of airline travelers so as not to add to the nation’s woes?

If some of the bus and jeepney unions can hold off their strikes on an otherwise ordinary day just to accommodate commuters at the government’s request, why couldn’t Palea do the same for their customers when a storm was raging?

Palea officials tried to justify what they did by saying their backs were against the wall. They said they never agreed to hold protest actions as Typhoon Pedring neared Luzon. They even dared PAL management and the President to sue them for what they did. “We are not stupid. We know the law,” they said.  They don’t get it. This is not just about the law. They didn’t need to be asked to postpone their strike. When lives are at risk, when there’s a storm raging, you put personal concerns aside for the common good. As airline workers—and they were still airline workers at the time—the striking Palea members had a responsibility to protect their travelers first. And yet they intentionally put the people they were supposed to serve in harm’s way—for what? So their protest actions could have maximum impact? It’s a good thing their irresponsible actions did not result in a tragic accident that could have cost lives that Tuesday.

Again, if they wanted sympathy for their cause, they didn’t get it. They could have won over more support had they simply done their duties on a day when they were needed most. People would have seen that small sacrifice as heroic. Instead, they saw a Palea strike that was both petulant and gratuitous.