By Philip Tubeza
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 04:32:00 11/12/2010
MANILA, Philippines—Philippine Airlines (PAL) Thursday formally asked the Department of Labor and Employment to dismiss the notice of strike filed by its union of ground workers.
Airline officials, led by PAL counsel Jocelyn de la Paz, submitted a motion to dismiss the strike notice that the PAL Employees Association (PALEA) had filed with the National Conciliation and Mediation Board (NCMB).
PALEA filed the notice of strike after Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz upheld PAL’s plan to spin off in-flight catering, ground services and call center reservation operations that would lead to the lay off of 2,600 workers.
The country’s major labor groups have condemned Baldoz’s ruling, saying it will result in widespread contractualization.
“Our lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the notice of strike filed by PALEA last Nov. 5,” PAL spokesperson Cielo Villaluna said on the sidelines of the second mediation hearing at the NCMB Thursday afternoon.
Villaluna said the national carrier maintained that PALEA’s bases in filing the strike notice—that PAL was coercing union members to accept its separation package and that there would be a mass termination of union officers—were “untrue and baseless.”
“It is by mere coincidence that the union officers belong to the three departments (to be affected by the retrenchment),” she said.
Bottom line
Villaluna said PAL considered the strike notice another ploy by PALEA to again question the retrenchment which had already been declared legal by Baldoz.
“The bottom line is … they are just raising the legality of the spin-off. It’s couched in a different language but, for us, it is, in truth, “an indirect way of questioning the spin-off,” Villaluna said.
She also cautioned PALEA about holding a strike vote, saying that the NCMB must first resolve the union’s strike notice before it could hold a strike vote among its members.
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