“The law is on our side. We’re implementing the outsourcing program not on mere whim or caprice but on the basis of legal and valid orders from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and the Office of the President. We’re doing it to save the airline from financial ruin,” PAL President Jaime J. Bautista, in a statement, said. Bautista also said it is the company’s right to restructure operations to ensure long-term survival and to save the jobs of its 5,000 remaining employees.
He stressed that those opposed to the spin-off see the loss of jobs of 2,400 members of the PAL Employees Association (Palea) but conveniently turn a blind eye to the 5,000 office personnel, cabin crew and pilots that PAL is trying to save.
Bautista, likewise, reiterated that the PAL management would no longer go back to the negotiating table with Palea.
“The DOLE and the President have spoken; Palea has filed its appeal with the appellate court. Let’s just wait for the CA’s action on this matter. We have nothing more to talk about. The time for diplomacy is long over, especially after the union’s wildcat strike,” he said.
“The time for negotiation has long passed. We invited Palea to a dialogue after the Office of the President threw out its petition seeking to invalidate PAL’s outsourcing plan. Palea members only have their intransigent leaders to blame for their current predicament,” he stressed.
Bautista said the concerted refusal of Palea members to perform their official duties in the early morning of September 27 was a strike.
“They refuse[d] to check in passengers, load cargo and cater food—functions which they are paid to perform while on official duty—yet, they insist it is merely a form of ‘protest’ and not a ‘strike’. That’s the kind of ‘double-speak’ Palea leaders have been dishing out since Day One of the debate on the spin-off/outsourcing plan,” he said.
As a result of the Palea members’ refusal to work, management was forced to cancel flights for more than 16 hours on Tuesday, which caused untold sufferings to more than 14,000 PAL passengers. “This doesn’t include the millions of dollars PAL lost as a result of Palea’s illegal acts,” he added.
However, Palea called the alleged financial ruin of PAL as “a modern-day fairy tale.”
“PAL does not have to choose between saving the jobs of 2,600 Palea members and the remaining 5,000 employees since it is not in danger of bankruptcy,” the association’s president, Gerry Rivera, said in a statement.
He claimed that for the past two years that PAL was not able to implement the spin-off plan because of Palea’s defiance, the airline company still earned a net income of $72.5 million, or more than P3 billion compared to the last fiscal year, and is already projecting a modest profit for the present year.
“The threat of ruin if outsourcing is not implemented is plain and simple black propaganda and blackmail by the airline. The reason the dispute has dragged on for the last two years and the present standoff exists is because of PAL’s intransigence,” he added.
Rivera also said the failure of the outsourcing plan is causing the continuing flight cancellations and delays.
He added that Palea called on the PAL management to stop the implementation of the outsourcing plan pending the final decision of the courts.
On their first day as officially jobless, the 2,600 Palea members continued their protest but this time through a cultural show where artists from the Dakila Collective for Modern Heroism performed at a solidarity concert, dubbed Pamorningan sa Palea, at the protest camp at the PAL In-flight Center. Dakila is led by artists Lourd de Veyra and Noel Cabangon.
