PAL union members vote to strike

INQUIRER.net
First Posted 17:30:00 12/10/2010

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippine Airline Employees’ Association (Palea) released the final results of the strike vote Friday afternoon after the union’s commission on elections (comelec) finished canvassing the ballots. Some 86 percent of the total votes cast were in favor of a strike and a substantial majority of the total Palea membership of 2,600 participated in the strike vote, according to a press release sent by Palea to INQUIRER.net.

“Today is International Human Rights Day and the resounding vote for a strike is a democratic expression of PAL employees’ resolve to fight for their job security. Labor rights are after all human rights. The 86-percent vote is overwhelmingly given the fact that we had just 24 hours to inform members of the holding of the strike ballot,” stated Gerry Rivera, Palea president and Partido ng Manggagawa vice chairman.

Rivera explained that the successful strike vote conducted among its members brought the union closer to holding an actual strike. According to the Labor Code, any legal strike can proceed only after a notice of strike is filed and a strike vote is conducted and that results in a simple majority of members agreeing.

He added that all that remains now is for Palea to file the results of the strike vote at the National Conciliation and Mediation Board (NCMB), which has jurisdiction of the dispute, and then wait for the lapse of the mandated seven-day notification or cooling off period.

“We understand that a strike at Philippine Airlines (PAL) may inconvenience the public. But we also believe that the vast majority of the public are workers and their families who will benefit from Palea’s fight for job security and labor rights,” Rivera insisted.

The strike vote was announced to Palea members last Monday just after a notice was filed at the NCMB. The actual strike vote was conducted the whole day of December 7. The union’s comelec then waited for all the ballot boxes to arrive from the provincial airports before it tabulated the results in Palea’s office in Paranaque Friday.

Meanwhile, Palea answered the arguments of the PAL management that the strike vote is illegal since there is no labor dispute pending. “The strike vote stems from the labor dispute docketed as NCMB-NCR NS-11-128-10. That dispute has not been resolved or assumed,” Rivera asserted.
He again clarified that the issue pending at the Office of the President was PAL’s outsourcing plan, which has been affirmed by Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz, while the strike vote arose from a separate though related complaint of individual bargaining by PAL management, which “constitutes unfair labor practice and union busting.”

Further Palea welcomed the consolidated security of tenure bill that was approved by the House labor committee at a hearing last Wednesday. “There will be many more Paleas if capitalists are allowed to use the loopholes of the law on subcontracting to bust unions, cheapen wages, worsen working conditions and demolish workers’ rights,” Rivera commented.