Who is now to blame

The Philippine Star
October 2, 2011

Philippine Airlines (PAL)’s outsourcing/spin-off of three of its non-core units, namely catering, ground handling, and reservations began yesterday, albeit on a difficult note.

It will be recalled that Malacañang ordered the third-party service providers to absorb the 2,400 employees of PAL that will be affected by the outsourcing program. Unfortunately, only one-fourth agreed to be absorbed.

So around 600 former PAL employees, together with 500 volunteers, undertook the task of reviving PAL’s operations, which for four days was hampered by the refusal of PAL’s striking employees to return to work.

The PAL Employees Association (PALEA) members’ refusal to work forced management to cancel flights for more than 16 hours at the start of the strike last Tuesday, inconveniencing more than 14,000 PAL passengers and resulting in losses for the company. This does not include the millions of dollars PAL lost as a result of PALEA’s illegal acts.

And because only around 1,000 or so employees are currently doing the work of 2,400 people, not to mention the still damaged equipment, PAL has only managed to restore to normalcy 60 percent of its operations.

So while PAL is slowly but surely rising from the ashes, the problems have just started for the striking PAL employees.

We’ve learned that PAL has hired top-notch lawyers to file the appropriate administrative, civil as well as criminal cases against these employees, who have allegedly violated a number of laws, rules and regulations.

Some of these employees in fact reportedly felt betrayed by their union leaders for getting the situation they are in. When the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) ruled in favor of PAL in its outsourcing bid, what the union should have done is bargain for better terms for the affected employees. What the union did instead was to go to Malacanang, which improved the package for the employees but only slightly.

PAL president Jimmy Bautista said last Friday that the time for negotiation has long passed, noting that he invited PALEA to a dialogue after the Office of the President threw out their petition seeking to invalidate PAL’s outsourcing plan.

PALEA members only have their intransigent leaders to blame for their current predicament, Bautista added.

Worse, the strikers cannot expect to get any sympathy from the public after having inconvenienced thousands of stranded passengers.