Tuesday, 28 September 2010 12:46 Lenie Lectura / Reporter
BusinessMirror
THE management of Philippine Airlines (PAL) on Tuesday appealed to the Flight Attendants’ and Stewards’ Association of the Philippines (Fasap) to seriously consider and accept the P105-million economic offer as well as the proposed retirement age of 45 for those hired by the airline after November 2000.
In a statement, PAL president Jaime Bautista said this call was made at the resumption of conciliation talks between PAL management and Fasap at the Department of Labor and Employment. The tripartite conciliation conference is the fourth meeting since Fasap filed a notice of strike on September 9. Three conciliation conferences have been held.
“I wish to assure Fasap members that the PAL management is not taking a hard-line stance. Despite serious financial difficulties, the company bent backwards to provide Fasap members what it believes is a fair amount of pay increase and benefits that it can afford at this time,” Bautista said.
In a recent meeting, both parties agreed in principle to expand maternity-related benefits and rice allowances amounting to P25 million. The agreement between both sides must be forged as a “package”—in order to settle all economic, gender and retirement issues.
As a precondition to the change in retirement age to 45 from the current 40, PAL is pushing for a mixed crew complement. “By allowing domestic crews to fly international and international crews to fly domestic routes, we hope to achieve two things—allow domestic crews to experience flying abroad to earn more in terms of per diems and other allowances; and maximize the utilization of PAL crew members, thus reducing the need to hire more cabin attendants and therefore save on costs,” Bautista said.
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