PAL not rehiring retrenched employees

By SAMUEL P. MEDENILLA
August 12, 2010, 8:16pm
Manila Bulletin

Philippine Airlines (PAL) has no plan to rehire its retrenched workers, PAL President Jaime Bautista said in an interview, Thursday after its conciliation meeting organized by the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE).

Bautista made the statement amid the accusations of the Philippine Airline Employees Association (PALEA) that it is merely changing the status of its regular employees to contractual to avoid giving their due benefits.

“We are in a crisis, we need to retrench some of our workers in order for PAL to survive,” Bautista said.

PALEA is the ground-based employees of PAL, the country’s flag carrier airline.
Bautista said PAL would need to sell its catering, ground handling, call center departments to Philippine Long Distance Telecommunication (PLDT) and Star Kitchen, so it could focus on providing its airline transportation service to the riding public and lessen its unnecessary costs.
“PAL is the only remaining airline in Asia with its own catering, ground-handling, and call center which are not competitive,” Bautista said.

“It needs to cut its unnecessary cost to be more attractive to investors,” he added.

However, Bautista assured the 3,600 affected employees that they would be absorbed by PLDT and Star Kitchen.

During the four-hour meeting in the National Capital Region office of the National Conciliation and Mediation Board, representatives from the PAL management and PALEA failed to come up with a compromise regarding the motion of reconsideration filed by the labor union at DoLE.
PALEA filed a petition at the Department of Labor and Employment to change the ruling of its former acting secretary Romeo Lagman, which favored the PAL management’s plans to outsource some of its services.

Both parties are still waiting for the decision of DoLE.

While it has not resolved the petition of PALEA, DoLE could not impose an assumption of jurisdiction or status quo decision on the case.

Meanwhile, PALEA President Gerry Rivera said they prefer to continue with the conciliation meeting with the PAL management, which is mediated by DoLE, but he indicated they would not hesitate to go on strike, which would be disadvantageous to the riding public, if the management initiates retrenching its employees.

“We are willing to cooperate with the PAL management, but if its start removing it employees we would have to protect are ourselves,” Rivera said.

Another meeting organized by DoLE is set on Monday to discuss the other concerns of both PAL and PALEA, Bautista said.