Agreement Still Needs Vote From PAL Union Members

Philippine Daily Inquirer
September 13, 1998
News
By Alna P. Pino

UNION members of Philippine Airlines must ratify a tentative accord to save the ailing airline, including a provision which suspends their collective bargaining agreement for 10 years, a union official said yesterday.

On Friday, PAL chair and majority owner Lucio Tan agreed to give 20-percent ownership of the company to its employees as part of the deal.

Under the proposed agreement, employees will also get three seats on the airline’s 15-member board of directors.

Each employee will receive 60,000 shares of stock worth P300,000 from the Tan group’s shareholdings in PAL.

However, they will not be allowed to dispose of or sell their shares until their retirement, the airline said.

The accord commits the company to refrain from cuts in salaries and medical benefits, and retrenched union members who have not received separation pay will be rehired, the airline said.

A majority of the 21 board members of the PAL Employees' Association, which represents ground crew workers, have voted to accept the proposal.

The same offer was made by PAL to the flight attendants’ and the pilots’ unions, but there was no immediate response from either group.

Alex Barrientos, president of Palea, said the agreement would have to be ratified by a majority of his union members in a vote next week.

“Employees would take the risk of letting PAL survive by supporting the programs of the company,” he said in explaining why union leaders accepted the offer.

He said company officials assured them their union  would still be recognized, but he warned Tan not to trick them.

But some top officials and regular members of Palea are opposing the agreement.

Palea officials who requested anonymity said they would move to get the majority to vote down the deal once it is submitted for ratification.

“They betrayed us. The (Palea) board has effectively dissolved the union,” a Palea official said.

They said that without the CBA,  Palea has lost its reason to exist as it could no longer effectively look after the interest of its members.

They warned that the decision could lead to a split in the leadership of Palea, whose members are now down to a little over 3,000 following a series of retrenchments.

PAL said last week it lost P2.2 billion in the first quarter of the fiscal year beginning April 1, mainly because of work stoppages.

A 22-day pilots’ strike in June caused the heaviest damage, causing revenue losses of about P200 million a day, PAL said.  Reports from AP and Armand Nocum.