PALEA's Game

Malaya

Tuesday, November 5, 1996

By J. A. DELA CRUZ

IF ALL that PALEA, the PAL union which staged the wild cat strike at the height of the Todos los Santos celebrations last week, wanted was undivided national attention to its misguided ways, it certainly got it and how.

For two and a half days the union held the national carrier, thousands of ordinary commuters and even the government hostage to its brattish behavior. Unmindful, probably even scornful, of the plight of the riding public, PALEA went ahead with its strike despite two orders of the Secretary of Labor and Employment. In so doing, it also disregarded pleas to consider the greater public interest.

But if PALEA bosses think they were able to generate sympathy for their cause they have another thing coming. Those polled at the height of the disturbance had nothing but scorn for the callousness and insensitivity of the strikers. Others took the occasion to question the PALEA leadership's sense of civic duty and responsibility.

Here is a case of a leadership representing some of the best paid employees in the country goading its members to go on strike for reasons which are not only non- strikable but quite simply unthinkable given the state of the national carrier. PALEA's wish list borders on the irrational that even such highly successful and healthy regional carriers such as Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines would have a hard time meeting, if at all. The union wants a P3.2 billion economic package which includes, among others, an across the board wage increase of P5,000 in addition to all mandated adjustments; Christmas bonus of 150 percent of basic salary; an additional one month mid-year bonus plus another commuted month pay on top of existing 13th and 14th month bonuses; increase in overtime rates; increase in vacation leave and sick leave days from 20 to 30 days; increase in emergency leave days from five to 10; other leaves such as one-day menstrual leave, seven days matrimonial leave, three-day family leave, seven-day parental leave; commutable free hospitalization benefit; a generous retirement plan, and additional non-cash benefits.

These are on top of existing benefits which already provides a typical newly hired rank and file employee an annual salary of P88,000 or roughly P7, 000 per month. That is approximately one and half times the full take home pay of an ordinary worker who, by the way, is not entitled to other benefits such as free and reduced air travel for himself and his dependents which costs PAL close to P77 million a year. These are just PALEA's demands. We are not yet talking here about those of the pilots and flight attendants whose own packages would certainly reach billions of pesos as well, amounts that PAL, which has lost Pl0 billion over the past 12 years and continues losing P3 million a day, can ill afford. There is just no way that the carrier, even if government stops harassing its majority owner, can accommodate such a package at this point.

This is precisely why, in a last ditch effort to stave off the mass action, PAL offered a generous employee stock option plan as a companion piece of its proposed economic package. The stock option plan which has proved to be successful and definitely more advantageous to the workers as shown in such resurgent carriers as United Airlines would have made management and labor responsible stewards of the airline's future. It would have also steered the airline to a more competitive future.

But the PALEA leaderships would have none of it. As it soon became apparent, the intransigence was a cruel play not only on the riding public but on the union membership as well. First, it was meant to pressure management and ultimately the government including the courts to relent on the case of the 40 PALEA members who were dismissed as a result of the 1994 illegal strike which is now under reconsideration at the High Tribunal. Second and perhaps more importantly, had management acceded to the strikers' demands the PALEA leadership and their lawyers would have made close to P320 million or 10 percent of the total package outright as fees and bonuses on top of continuing opportunities to dip into the union's funds during the life of the con-tract.

So there. PALEA's game, it should be clear by now, was precisely meant to inflict maximum damage even to the point of sacrificing the rank and file to satisfy the thirst, pecuniary or otherwise, of its leadership. What a way...