INQUIRER.net
First Posted 11:35:00 02/28/2010
MANILA, Philippines—Militants won a landslide victory in the elections for the Philippine Airlines (PAL) ground crew union on February 25, twelve years after the controversial moratorium in the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) of 1998, the PAL Employees Association (Palea) said in a news release over the weekend.
“After 12 long years, PAL employees again have a union that will protect their rights and welfare, including job security,” said Gerry Rivera, who will assume the position of Palea president on March 29.
Rivera said his group, party-list group Partido ng Manggagawa (PM), campaigned on a platform of defending job security, will immediately face a challenge as PAL reportedly plans to spin off departments and lay off employees this coming April.
PM members won the top three national union positions and their local party called Sulong Paleans cornered 13 of the 21-member union board during the elections held last Thursday, February 25. But the ballots were only finally tallied Friday night with the winners proclaimed by the union Commission on Elections and representatives of the labor department’s Metro Manila office, the news release said.
Rivera is also vice chairman of PM and has been a PM nominee in the past party-list elections. He was vice president of Palea during the PAL strike of 1998, the biggest labor dispute of the 1990s. After owner Lucio Tan temporarily shut down PAL, PAL employees were forced to agree to a 10-year CBA moratorium that has been extended twice since 2008.
The fight against spin-off and outsourcing will be a key task of the incoming union leadership, according to Rivera.
In September 2009, PAL management announced that it would outsource passenger handling, ramp handling, cargo handling, and catering by November. Rivera said the plan, which was shelved after his Sulong Paleans protested against it, would result in the layoff of at least 2,000 PAL employees.
Rivera also revealed that Palea will now insist on negotiations for a new CBA. “Through the CBA, we will ensure that security of tenure is guaranteed. No spin-off or layoff must happen if the union does not agree,” he explained.
“Contractualization is a virus that has ravaged the workers, depriving them of security of tenure, decent wages, and benefits. If PAL employees are successful in resisting management’s drive to outsource work, then hopefully we can help reverse the epidemic of contractualization,” he added.
