Philippine Daily Inquirer
Sunday, November 3, 1996
As I See It
By NEAL H. CRUZ
THE ILLEGAL strike at Philippine Airlines could not have been timed more cruelly by the union. Timed by the PAL Employees' Association (Palea) just as Filipinos were going home for All Saints' Day, the strike prevented tens of thousands of people from being at family reunions to honor their dead which they had been looking forward to the whole year. It's despicably cruel.
It hurt the already money-losing PAL, which lost millions of pesos more from unrealized revenues from passengers and services to other airlines. But it hurt the passengers more. Of course, strikers are expected to hit management where it hurts most, but the stranded passengers became the innocent victims of Palea.
If the strike is not resolved soon, it may well eat into the Christmas-homecoming season, the peak season for the airline industry, and many people may miss their Christmas family reunions. And with the Apec summit due to start this month, the strike will mean not only more lost revenues but also embarrassment to the Philippines in the eyes of the international community.
The irony is that the longer the strike lasts, the more PAL management cannot afford to pay the higher salaries and other benefits Palea is demanding. As we reported in our Oct. 30 column, Palea already gets half of PAL's P4-billion payroll. It is demanding P3.2 billion more in a new collective bargaining agreement, which is more than a 150-percent increase.
PAL is losing P3 million daily; and much more now with the strike. In the past two years alone, it lost P3 billion. Its total losses has now reached P10.7 billion. In other money-losing airlines in the world – Northwest, TWA, Continental – executives and workers voluntarily got pay cuts to bail out the company until the situation improves. But at PAL, one union wants to squeeze more blood out of the already hemorrhaging airline. Yet PAL employees are already the highest paid in the local airline industry.
PAL simply cannot afford to lose more money. If it goes under because of the strike, as has happened in many other companies hit by leftist-dominated strikes, all the PAL workers will lose their jobs. Lucio Tan and his fellow investors will also lose their shirts and the government won't be able to collect taxes from them.
But think of the possible gains if PAL management knuckles under. The lawyers and 12 leaders of Palea are to get 10 percent of the additional benefits. That's P320 million. Divide that by 12 (for the Palea leaders) plus two lawyers -- a total of 15 -- and each of them will get P8 million! Isn't that worth fighting for even if the lawyers and leaders risk the security of tenure of their members?
Besides, 40 of the leaders of the first wildcat strike in 1994 have already been dismissed because the Department of Labor and Employment has ruled that strike illegal. In short, they have nothing more to lose even if PAL closes shop. Never mind if the workers lose their jobs, too.
It is ironic that the strike has to come at this time when PAL management is on the verge of turning around the perennial money-losing airline with a $4-billion modernization and expansion program. After bleeding financially for years, refleeting is the only way to make the airline competitive and profitable through the addition of more routes and destinations. Lucio Tan hocked his other corporations to raise the needed additional capital.
With 14,000 employees, PAL is grossly overstaffed but Tan rejected the clamor by some in the PAL board to slash the staff. He believes that refleeting, modernization and expansion will create more jobs and make the PAL workforce more productive.
And because PAL cannot afford the additional P3.2 billion Palea is demanding, he still tried to accommodate them by offering to pay them in shares of stock and making them part owners of the airline and share in the profits.
But that's not good enough for the Palea wrecking crew. It seems that they want the demise of PAL no less. In fact, the strike could also be aimed at the Apec summit, which is due to start on Nov. 24, because the strike is backed by leftist elements. A strike in the national flag carrier, will create chaos at the airports and wreak havoc on the flight schedules of thousands of incoming and outgoing delegates, dignitaries and journalists. What a way to embarrass the Philippine government. Palea members may think that the strike is for their benefit, but the strike leaders may have a different agenda.
This is no longer a fight between PAL management and one of its unions. It already involves national interest. How will delegates to the Subic economic conference view a country trying to attract foreign investors but where industries already there are wrecked by labor unions and by the government itself through the persecution of its investors?
DOLE, through acting Labor Secretary Cresenciano Trajano, has issued a return-to-work order (earlier, it issued two orders warning the union not to go on strike) but Palea refuses to honor it, claiming that only the President or the secretary of labor can issue such an order.
Labor Secretary Leonardo Quisumbing happens to be abroad, but President Ramos is here. Palea may be wrong legally, but to hasten things for the good of the public, it would take the President no more than 10 minutes to issue a return-to-work order while the issues behind the strike are being mediated by DOLE. But Mr. Ramos, who is famous for attending to the minutest detail in other cases, chose to be aloof on the PAL strike. Forget that the majority owner of PAL is Lucio Tan whom the government is trying very hard to send to prison on tax evasion charges already thrown out by the Supreme Court. Remember that this is for the sake of the public who are being held hostage by the strikers. The President's reputation is also at stake here because of the chaos the strike will inflict on the Apec conference.
Failure to enforce the labor laws on Palea will only expose the Ramos administration as a weakling.
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