PAL labor trouble a House priority

By Lira Dalangin-Fernandez
INQUIRER.net First Posted 15:03:00 11/02/2010

MANILA, Philippines—(UPDATE) The case of the 2,600 retrenched employees of the Philippine Airlines (PAL) will be a priority of the labor and employment committee in the House of Representatives when sessions resume next week.

Northern Samar Representative Emil Ong, chairman of the committee, said he will set a hearing next week or the week after to look into the alleged anti-labor practice in the country’s flag carrier.
The seven bills and resolutions pending before the committee dealing with the PAL case will be consolidated and discussed during the hearing, Ong said in a phone interview.

But he acknowledged that Congress cannot do anything to reverse the decision of Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz, who allowed the 2,600 employees and members of the PAL Employees Association to be laid off following the company’s move to spin off some of its operations.

The order of the labor department takes effect on November 8, or 10 days after the parties have received the ruling.

“The remedy is through the court, not really here in Congress. Maybe they can file for an extension,” Ong said.

Ong said it is time to give attention to the country’s labor laws and see if they are responsive enough to the plight of both workers and management.

“The hearing is not really to penalize or anything, but to propose legislation for future problems, so they will not recur again,” he said.

Among those to be invited are officials of the Department of Labor and Employment, Department of Transportation and Communications, and PAL management and employees.
Lawmakers continue to assail the decision, calling it anti-labor.

“It will set a bad precedent for other companies to lay off employees under the guise of outsourcing,” Eastern Samar Representative Ben Evardone said.

Evardone said the President should review and reverse the decision of Baldoz.
“Millions will lose their jobs if the Baldoz formula is not reversed,” he added in a text message.
Akbayan party-list Representative Walden Bello said the labor department’s decision “opens the floodgates to the erosion of job security.”

“Already, regularized workers are having problems with abusive managements that refuse to provide them minimum wage and uphold other labor rights. By giving contractualization her seal of approval, this means workers will, more often than not, never get regularized, and are effectively powerless against end-of-contract, massive lay-offs, and other such violations of labor laws,” Bello said.
One of the pending resolutions, House Resolution 111 of Anakpawis party-list Representative Rafael Mariano, scored PAL for “faking its financial health” to justify the retrenchment of the workers.
According to the resolution, the company even purchased two new Boeing 777-300ER jets, one in November 2009 and another in January 2010.

PAL also had a series of promotional events, where up to 70,000 free seats were given away throughout the year, which proves that the company is not in the brink of bankruptcy, the resolution added.