PALEA submits new CBA
MANILA – The Philippine Airlines Employees Association (PALEA) said it has submitted a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) to the management of the Asia’s first airline carrier for the first time after a moratorium that started in 1998.
Gerry Rivera, PALEA president, said the CBA for the year 2008 to 2013 was received by PAL president Jaime Bautista, on October 8.
“We expect management to respond to our proposal and negotiate in good faith,” Rivera said.
The PAL-PALEA CBA was put on moratorium for 10 years in the wake of the bitter 1998 labor dispute that saw a pilots’ and ground crew strike, and the closure of the national flag carrier.
A year after, 69- year-old airline entered corporate receivership with US$ 2.12 billion total debts.
Rivera said that among the salient points of the CBA proposal is the updating and upgrading of the pay scale.
“Too much wage distortion has been done to the pay scale so that there exists not only a severe contraction but to a certain extent an elimination of the quantitative differences between the job grades. We now aim to correct these distortions,” Rivera said.
He also said that the proposal retained but revised the provision of the old CBA, prohibiting contracting out of existing positions, jobs, divisions and departments presently occupied by present or future regular employees.
In addition, Rivera said the proposal improves on the old by explicitly barring outsourcing.
“This particular provision protects job security and union representation. The planned mass layoff of some 3,000 PAL workers is illegal because of this CBA provision,” Rivera said, adding that the CBA proposal contains provisions that enhance the retirement scheme.
PAL is concurrently negotiating a CBA with its flight crew.
The negotiations have, however, been on a deadlocked over disputes of retirement age and gender discrimination. The dispute has been assumed by Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz.
The PAL-PALEA row over the mass layoff has similarly been assumed.
Meanwhile, PAL said the current labor row with its cabin crew failed to scare applicants to work in the Asia’s first airline carrier.
Jose S.L. Uybarreta, PAL vice president for Human Resources Development, said for the first nine months of the year, PAL received close to 20,000 job applications.
“Our Talent Acquisition, Management and Retention Division accepts an average of 100 applicants a day. For August alone, a total of 3,520 applications were processed,” Uybarreta said.
Of the total number of applicants, he said, about half or 9,000 were seeking cabin crew positions.
“PAL recently added two brand new ‘Extended Range’ Boeing 777-300s to its fleet of wide-body aircraft. This led to the promotion of senior cabin crew and opened the door for the hiring and training of new ones,” he said.
Uybarreta said he believes PAL’s current labor problems with its cabin crew union have not deterred fresh graduates from applying with Asia’s first airline.
“PAL maintains a good and competitive track record when it comes to employee salaries and benefits. Hence, FASAP’s unfounded allegations of below-minimum wage pay and gender discrimination do not seem to hold water among aspiring crew members,” he said.
“If PAL is discriminating and/or abusing its cabin crew, applicants should outright be disillusioned from entering PAL. But many real-life success stories of our flight attendants fuel dreams of starting a flying career with PAL,” Uybarreta said.*PNA
