PAL, FASAP yet to agree on retirement age issue

A disagreement regarding the compulsory retirement age of its flight attendants has prevented Philippine Airlines (PAL) and a flight attendants’ union from approving a new labor agreement.

This has prompted the Flight Attendants’ and Stewards’ Association of the Philippines (FASAP) to threaten a strike again on Monday, three hours after it held negotiations with PAL officials at the National Conciliation and Mediation Board (NCMB) offices in Manila.

“We will talk with members about the possibility of holding a strike,” FASAP president Robert Anduiza told media who were staked out at the NCMB offices as early as 10 a.m.

Anduiza was referring to a compulsory 40-year mandatory retirement age contained in a previous labor agreement that has already lapsed in 2007. It has been criticized as discriminatory since it denies job security to flight attendants.

This mandatory retirement age is “unreasonable,” Anduiza said. “PAL’s ground crew workers are allowed to work until 65.”

Since the airline “has no clear position about the retirement age of flight attendants…it has been bargaining in bad faith,” he said. “This issue has been brought up two CBAs ago.”

He said PAL intends to postpone a decision about the matter since officials seek to discuss the issue in 2015, the year of the next collective bargaining agreement (CBA).

No date for the FASAP membership meeting has been set because more than half of its members are abroad, serving PAL’s international flights.

Only 350 flight attendants serve domestic flights, Anduiza said.

Retirement age

Both parties are currently discussing provisions of its 2005-2010 CBA although talks have failed to proceed since PAL and flight attendants remain intractable regarding the retirement age issue.

For its part, PAL president Jaime Bautista said the company “remains open to talking about retirement age.”

“Why the rush?” he asked. “We can still talk about that in 2018 or 2019.”

The airline has offered an P80-million “one-time payment…to cover and settle the remaining economic issues of the 2005-2010 collective bargaining agreement with FASAP,” a copy of the minutes of the meeting indicated.

However, the amount is “not that substantial” because it will be distributed in three years for its 1,600 members, Anduiza said.

Moreover, the proposal is “incomplete” since “it does not address the main issues of retirement and gender discrimination of flight attendants,” a copy of the meeting’s minutes obtained by GMANews.TV said.

“The proposal does not even address the minimum wage violations of PAL or even the discriminatory allocation of rice subsidy to its employees,” the same document said.

PAL employees receive P1,800 as rice subsidy, while flight attendants receive only P1,200, Anduiza said.

PAL assurance

In the meantime, Bautista also gave an assurance that the 2,600 PAL workers it intends to “outsource” will still be employed by its service providers.

However, their salaries and benefits may change since these “will be based on new levels set by the service provider,” Bautista added.

Salaries “will be based on industry rates,” he said.

Bautista also defended the company’s outsourcing plans, saying that PAL is the only airline in Asia “that still maintains its own catering company and its ground staff.”

Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines purchase their requirements from service providers, he added.

Service providers “will not be owned by any PAL shareholder to show that these businesses will not be transferred to shareholders,” he said.

The strategy was undertaken to allow PAL to “extend services and offer fares at competitive rates,” Bautista said.

Earlier, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) approved PAL’s outsourcing plans, even though its workers’ union — the Philippine Airlines Employees Association — considered it “contrary to its CBA.”

Under its plan, PAL will “spin off” its call center, ground handling, and airport operations.

Another meeting between PAL and FASAP will be held at the NCMB in Manila on Aug. 17 at 10 a.m. — RSJ/KBK, GMANews.TV