MISREADINGS
Understanding the PAL dispute
For various reasons, I have preferred to travel by air transportation under the country’s flag carrier – Philippine Airlines.
Although in previous occasions, I dread being a passenger of PAL because it is the airline of choice of many government officials and politicians who are always on the run for meetings and appointments in places outside Manila. This practice of accommodating government “VIPs” repeatedly compromised flight schedules resulting to delays.
This experience earned the ire of many passengers and by impulse they opted to take another airline company which guarantees on-time schedule. It turned out later that the same accommodations were adopted and so, like me, passengers were back to PAL.
Recently, I was scheduled to travel by PAL, in spite of its measure to reduce its flights as a result of the mass resignation of its pilots, because I somehow share affinity and sympathy with its employees.
For years now, I am aware that a dispute between the management and the employees remains unresolved in spite of numerous negotiations undertaken between the two parties in order to reach an equitable solution. Yet beyond the issues reported by the media, I wanted this time to find sense on what are the substantial issues confronting PAL employees – pilots and crews – in light of the enjoyable profits being raked by its management and owners.
There are three issues at hand: the status of the Collective Bargaining Agreement between PAL management and the Philippine Airlines Employees Association (PALEA); the outsourcing or contractualization of numerous PAL services; and, the mass termination or retrenchment of employees.
THE CBA. In August 2009, during the period for the negotiation of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement between PAL and PALEA, the management announced its plan to close down the operations of several departments which provides vital service support in the over-all operations of the airline company.
The management intends to go into job contracting or adopt labor only contracting scheme with a justification that the company is bleeding financially, hence, it is pushed to adopt such drastic measures or else it will fold up.
OUTSOURCING. The drastic measure that the management is talking about is to contractualize the operations of the following: in-flight catering, airport services, and call center reservations.
TERMINATION OF EMPLOYEES. PALEA revealed that the measure of outsourcing numerous operations will displace an estimated 70 percent of its membership including rank-and-file employees, 62 percent of union leadership, and 35 percent of PAL’s workforce.
However, deeper scrutiny of PAL’s finances reveals that it has been earning quite more than the average as claimed by the management. This is the reason why contracting out certain aspects of its operations or total contractualization of labor and operations is not the answer – it is the problem – its state of finances is not the issue at hand. This is rather a deliberate plan in order to take advantage of an opportunity to rake in windfall profits.
The members of PALEA believe that the management would want to condition the minds of the public that PAL operations require government rescuing. On the contrary, the employees assert these measures constitute violation of the country’s labor laws and its CBA which guarantees job security and contracting of existing positions, jobs, divisions, and department operations.
I am not sure if the current Aquino administration has a solid program on labor, such as ensuring job security, proper compensation, and institutionalizing benefits. Currently, the working conditions of Filipino workers under its employers is beyond describable – extended work hours, double tasking, mismatch of skills, less pay, no benefits, no job security.
The situation of PAL employees under its management only illustrates the state of labor in this country and what kind of labor practices has been institutionalized by many employers all these years.
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