Crash Landing

Philippine Daily Inquirer

Monday, November 4, 1996

There's the Rub

By CONRADO DE QUIROS

I don’t know that it’s a case of "all's well that ends well."

Above all, because I don't know that it has ended well. The PAL strike was called off last weekend, after lasting three days, which stranded thousands of local commuters on their way home for All Saints' Day, and seemed a victory for Palea, PAL's ground-crew union. Management withheld sanctions on the strikers, and agreed to sit down with them to work out a new CBA. Above all, it agreed to suspend the selling of a whole chunk of PAL services to private bidders, which would have laid off 3,000 workers.

But the war has just begun. And as Palea probably knows only too well, it's going to be a long and bitter one. Flying the friendly skies, PAL's motto for years, has given way to another motto in the country's premier airline, and that is: What Lucio wants, Lucio gets. It stands to reason. Lucio Tan has pretty much gotten what he wants from the rest of the country: he has gotten away with being a Marcos crony, and he has gotten away from charges of tax evasion. Why shouldn't he expect to get what he wants from a small thing like PAL? Or, indeed, why should he allow smaller things like unions to get in his way?

And what Tan wants is to chop up PAL --"chop-chop," as PAL's employees themselves graphically put it -- and give the parts to favored companies. The freight to Aboitiz, the other services to friends and lackeys. The scheme will not save money for PAL, it will only make money for the buyers. It will also save Tan the trouble of dealing with unions, and having to run a business in less than sweatshop conditions. At the end of day, PAL's stockholders will be told of continuing losses, which will give Tan another excuse to exploit the workers, and tyrannize the unions.

Have you ever wondered why they're all saying PAL is losing and yet are all scrambling to get a piece of it? Indeed, have you ever wondered why the Scrooger-than-Scrooge Tan keeps saying PAL is losing, and yet is sticking to it like a leech? One explanation, manufactured by Tan's cohorts, is that it is his way of giving back to the country that has made him rich beyond his wildest dreams. It is his commitment. He will make PAL work if he has to impoverish himself to do it.

Commitment? You believe that, and you should be committed to an asylum.

No, the battle may be over, but the war is far from being so. PAL's management has agreed to talk about a new CBA, but it must be asked what management's word is worth. Three years ago, that same management agreed not just to talk about a CBA but to sign one with the union of PAL stewards, a CBA that had taken months to work out. At the last minute, management walked out. It was Christmas, and that was management's way of showing Christian charity. The stewards, who labor (literally) for wages even NGO workers would find insulting, have not gotten any raise since then. The dispute went to the labor department and thence to the Supreme Court where it has lain undead for years.

Fasap's strike was a terrible inconvenience to commuters, and the weeping and gnashing of teeth that greeted the strikers' seeming intolerance -- displayed at a time when many Filipinos longed to go back to their hometowns -- was completely understandable. But here's a case where we may do with summoning some tolerance of our own. A strike at PAL, from any one of its three unions, is a tragedy waiting to happen. The one that happened last week, in defiance of DOLE orders, was long past due. The oppression the PAL unions have endured has not just been long and onerous, it has come from all sides.

Not least from DOLE, its labor arbitration department being one of the most corrupt and bribable in the world. The workers' fear of DOLE arbitration is not unfounded. Without the glare of media, that arbitration always tends to be arbitrary. Or more than arbitrary, skewed in favor of management. It's the one agency in DOLE that argues for naming it the Department of Management and Unemployment. That is what it does: it foments exploitation, and creates joblessness.

But even more than DOLE, the courts. If workers fear DOLE arbitration, they fear court rulings even more. Which is how labor cases often go: DOLE tosses them to the courts, who either rule as well in favor of management, or toss them back to DOLE. The workers' fear is directly proportional to the resources of their employers. You have a Lucio Tan, who can persuade even the Supreme Court to see innocence writ large on his face, and your fear turns to holy terror.

Contrary to rumor, workers do not naturally want to strike -- least of all, to embarrass government, however corrupt it is too. Anyone who has experienced going on a strike will know so. You strike, and you risk work, and food, and life, for yourself and your children. You endure hardship, uncertainty, and humiliation. You've got to be driven to desperate lengths to want to strike. The PAL unions have been brought there.

And finally, too, not just by DOLE, not just by the courts, but by media as well. By the stunning silence of media, a silence as vast and palpable as the sea of white ash across the feet of Mt. Pinatubo. If Palea had not defied the gods and struck at the heart of the season of homecoming, who would have known then monumental hurt that lay behind the smiles of the people who flew the friendly skies? Who would have known the deadly rust that was creeping into every nut and bolt of an airline that was once the envy of Asia?

No one would for not even media dared to know it, not even media dared to touch it. PAL's workers would groan, and media would not hear. PAL's workers would plead, and media would not see. PAL's workers would bleed, and media would not feel. If PAL's workers had not walked out and given the world to hear and see and feel, media might never have thought they were there.

The strike was meant to embarrass Apec? Well, if so, then Apec ought to be embarrassed. What the hell is this? You level the playing field for everyone, except the workers?