What’s with PAL?

Business World
Friday-Saturday, September 18-19, 1998
OPINION
Fast Forward
By Teddy Casiño

The latest with PAL is that its rank and file union, the PAL Employees’ Association (PALEA), has rejected management's offer to give employees 20 percent ownership of the airline and three seats in the board of directors.

This, a few days after 13 members of the PALEA board led by union President Alex Barrientos accepted the deal, including 60,000 shares of stock worth P300, 000 per employee which can be sold upon retirement.

PALEA's reversal was caused by its members' widespread opposition to the offer, which would force the union, among other things, into a 10-year moratorium on its collective bargaining agreement. The power to bargain collectively is a basic function of any union.

For entering into such a sell-out, Barrientos and company now face a mutiny. Even Barrientos's guru, Felimon "Ka Popoy” Lagman of the Bukluran ng Manggagawa para sa Pagbabago (BMP), has dropped his favorite protégé like a hot potato.

If we recall, it was Lagman and erstwhile colleague RC Constantino of Sanlakas who brokered earlier talks between Barrientos and PAL boss Lucio Tan. Maybe Barrientos forgot to pay his, ah… obligations? Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Anyway, the on goings at PAL has elicited reactions from many labor groups who view the developments with concern. All fear the PAL case may set precedents in this world of rightsizing schemes, union-busting and contractualization of labor.

The sharpest analysis comes from the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), whose international department released a statement on the Internet this week.

The KMU says, PALEA’s fight against management's "rightsizing” scheme has turned into a battle against "corporatism or business unionism — a fascist scheme developed by capitalists… seeking to suppress workers' dissent by making them ‘co-owners’ of business and as political stooges of the government.”

Corporatism stems from the belief that the most effective way to reform a unionist is to make him a capitalist. Thus, the most effective way to demolish PALEA is to make it part of management.

It is in this context that we view the PAL-PALEA deal, and those still to be made with other unions, FASAP and ALPAP. The problem is not the 10-year CBA moratorium. The problem is management's "generous offer” itself.

PAL's strategy is to neutralize or, at most, bust the unions by making them part of management. Accepting the offer to be token co-owners of PAL, however, tempting it may seem, is like signing the union's death warrant.

Unless the contradictions between labor and capital, between wages and profits disappear, the workers' place in the management's board of directors can be nothing but cooptation. In such a situation, the union will have a hand in any board decision to downsize, to implement flexible labor schemes, to reject wage increases, and to implement other anti-worker policies. And since they will always be in the minority, they will have no choice but to accede.

Necessarily, union members will find themselves infighting as to what should come first: higher wages or higher profit dividends.

Eventually, they will end up questioning the need for a union, since they are already part of management and can address their concerns through management structures like LMCs and the like. Anyway, the thinking goes, they will always have representation in the board.

It is important to note that PAL's stock sharing option and offer of three board seats is quite different from ownership. The workers' representatives will never have their way in the board, and their combined shares of stock can never make a dent in the stockholders' meeting. All they'll get is token ownership towards cooptation.

PALEA will be doing its members no good if it simply insists against the 10-year CBA moratorium.

If management's strategy pushes through, there might not be any union at all in two years! In place of a union meeting, workers will find themselves attending a stockholders' meeting.

The real danger lurks in the fact that PALEA's leaders see nothing bad against PAL's latest scheme. Are they so enamored with the P300,000 worth of stocks? Or the thought that they'll be rubbing elbows with their former tormentors?

For most of PALEA's members, the issue has always been clear: job security and no layoffs. Just stick to that, and they will go places. As they say, "Tuloy ang laban sa PAL!"