PAL welcomes Palace move on strike vote
The Philippine Airlines (PAL) welcomed on Wednesday Malacanang’s appeal to the PAL Employees Association (PALEA) to exercise restraint in their planned strike for the sake of the flying public.
“PAL would like to thank President Aquino and Executive Secretary (Paquito) Ochoa for their immediate response to this potential labor crisis at Philippine Airlines. We all know that a work stoppage would not only hurt the company, related industries and the country’s economy, but would also wreak havoc on the travel plans of thousands of local and foreign travelers,” PAL spokesperson Cielo Villaluna said.
She said that PAL believes that the Office of the President has primary and official jurisdiction over the PAL-PALEA labor case.
“PAL defers and respects the good judgement of the President. We hope PALEA will do the same,” Villaluna said.
Villaluna maintained PAL’s position that Tuesday’s gathering for strike votes by PALEA has no legal justification.
“We believe PALEA’s complaints about individual bargaining should have been raised before the Office of the President before they conducted a strike vote. But while we believe that PALEA’s actions ‘have no leg to stand on’ we leave it to the President to make a final determination on the legality of yesterday’s exercise,” she added.*
