PAL flying into more labor turbulence next week

MANILA, Philippines—Philippine Airlines (PAL) will find its hands full next week as it deals with two pending labor disputes with the unions of flight attendants and ground crew.

Malacañang, which is mediating the dispute between the country’s flag carrier and its 25 resigned pilots, admitted on Wednesday that the deadlock may not be resolved this week, leaving PAL handling three labor problems in the coming days.

On Aug. 9, officials of the Flight Attendants and Stewards Association of the Philippines (FASAP), composed of 1,600 PAL employees, are set to meet with PAL executives at the labor department’s National Conciliation and Mediation Board in Manila for talks about their collective bargaining agreement.

Outsourcing

On Aug. 12, it will be the turn of the officials of the PAL Employees Association (Palea) to face the executives regarding the labor department’s decision on June 15 that backed PAL management’s outsourcing of nearly 3,000 jobs in the airlines’ in-flight catering, airport services and call-center reservation operations.

Palea said the plan would result in the layoff of some 2,600 ground crew personnel as they shift from regular to contractual work arrangements with companies of PAL owner Lucio Tan.

Contractualization

The union described the scheme as a “massive contractualization of regular employees.”

FASAP board secretary Ricky Montecillo said the group might pull out of the talks and decide to hold a strike vote should the PAL management submit again unacceptable counterproposals on Monday’s conciliation talks.

“If they still present proposals that we find are unacceptable, we could withdraw from the talks and go outside [to strike],” Montecillo told the Inquirer.

Montecillo said the union hoped that PAL president Jaime Bautista would have something to offer that was acceptable.

He hinted that Bautista’s offers on behalf of management were limited during the previous talks.

FASAP has accused the PAL management of allegedly bargaining in bad faith.

The two sides have been finishing their negotiations for a new CBA that expired three years ago. They have been deadlocked on salary increases, and the company’s alleged age and gender discrimination policies and compulsory retirement ages.

Open to dialogue

In a television interview, PAL spokesperson Cielo Villaluna called on FASAP to consider the inconvenience that PAL customers would suffer if the threatened strike materialized and crippled the carrier.

She called on the union to avoid resorting to threats. “Management is open to a peaceful dialog. This [threat to strike] scares our passengers,” she said.

Rally

In Makati, militant groups Thursday called on Malacañang to investigate Tan’s profits and anti-labor schemes.

Some 30 members of the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) and Anakpawis, among others, staged a rally in front of PAL’s corporate office on Ayala Avenue to condemn Tan for allegedly intensifying the exploitation and causing the layoff of workers in the airline.

“The PAL management claims that the pilots who resigned were merely motivated by personal interests. If there is a party to this issue that has consistently advanced nothing but his personal interests, that is Lucio Tan,” said Roger Soluta, KMU general secretary.

The demonstrators said that among Tan’s alleged anti-labor schemes included increases in workload and decreases in wages, illegal termination, moratorium on collective bargaining agreement negotiations, promotion of contractualization, and use of dummy corporations, Soluta added. –Jerome Aning, Tina Santos, Philippine Daily Inquirer