Stop protests, join outsourcing firms, PAL union members told

MANILA, Philippines—Lucio Tan-led Philippine Airlines (PAL) has issued a plea to its retrenched workers to accept job offers from the company’s subcontractors to help normalize the flag carrier’s operations.

PAL president and chief operating officer Jaime J. Bautista called on members of the company’s labor union, PAL Employees’ Association (Palea), to halt protests that have hampered the operations of the airline.

“If they are sincere in helping the airline, I urge them to cross over and sign up with the service providers. Instead of engaging in forms of harassment and attempting to block entrance and exits of a PAL facility, they should channel their energies into helping the company in its transition period,” Bautista said in a statement.

More than half of Palea’s members, including its top officials, were included in the company’s retrenchment of 2,600 employees implemented last week. The retrenchment program involved the closure of three departments—the call center reservations, in-flight catering and airport services.

The “non-core” operations handled by these departments have since been outsourced to third-party service providers’ SPi Global, Sky Kitchen and Sky Logistics.

The layoffs, which are aimed at cutting cost, pushed through despite pleas by Palea for PAL to put it on hold until the country’s court has decided on the matter with finality.

Affected Palea members were given until the end of last month to sign up to be absorbed by the three service providers before those companies start to hire elsewhere. Only a fraction of Palea members took the offer as a sign of defiance.

Bautista said Sky Kitchen and Sky Logistics have begun accepting more applicants from outside, which meant the number of openings for Palea members would soon run out.

PAL had to cancel about 40 flights on Tuesday as it adjusts to its new operational structure with service providers.

In a separate statement, Palea said the union would soldier on until the airline’s management reinstated them as PAL employees with full salaries and benefits.

“Our picket line will not break,” Palea president Gerry Rivera said.

The union leader said he still believed that the union, PAL management and the government with some help from other important sectors of society could still come up with a just and reasonable solution to the “impasse.”

The National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) late last month junked Palea’s unfair labor practice case against PAL on the outsourcing issue. In a 14-page resolution, the NLRC’s special second division upheld PAL’s stand that the issue on outsourcing should be resolved first before CBA negotiations with the union commenced.

PAL’s previous CBA proposal did not include employees to be retrenched, which Palea complained about. But the commission ruled that PAL did not violate the union’s rights to bargain collectively.