Gov’t asks SC to throw out PALEA petition vs strike ban

The Philippine Star

Friday, December 18, 1998

Government lawyers asked the Supreme Court yesterday to throw out a petition by the Philippine Airlines (PAL) workers union, questioning the legality of the prior no-strike deal it entered into with the airline's management in October.

Solicitor General Ricardo Galvez said the PAL Employees Association (PALEA) could have violated the High Tribunal's rule on judicial hierarchy when it filed its petition.

He said PALEA's plea should have not landed before the Supreme Court since there are a lot of questions that need to be determined first by the lower courts.

“The appropriate forum for resolving the factual and legal issues…are the RTCs (regional trial courts) which are vested by law with exclusive and original jurisdiction to hear and determine actions for nullity of contract," said Galvez.

GaIvez represents PAL Chairman Lucio Tan as well as Finance Secretary Edgardo Espiritu and Labor Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma.

The labor union claimed that the PAL-PALEA accord was made "under duress."

It will be recalled that union leaders struck the deal with Tan only days after Asia's oldest airline collapsed and shut down under debts worth $2 billion.

Under the deal, the union agreed to suspend its right to strike for 10 years and allow management to slash the workforce by up to 30 percent in exchange for a 20-percent stake in the company and three seats on the IS normal board of directors.

This agreement divided the union prompting the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to conduct a referendum on PAL’s offer.

Defiant union members, however, vowed to contest the results of the referendum before the Supreme Court, saying the deal went against the labor rights guaranteed under the Constitution.

The union stated in its 56-page petition that the agreement should he considered as void since it violates the Constitution as well as denying workers their guaranteed right to self-organization and collective bargaining.

"These two constitutional rights of workers are inseparable," PALEA said.

“The right to self-organization assures the efficacy of the right to collective bargaining. If workers are deprived of their right to self-organization, the right to collative bargaining is rendered illusory. If workers are stripped of their right to collative bargaining, their right to self-organization becomes meaningless," it added.

Ironically, two PALEA officers — Gerardo Rivera and Dennis Aranas — who earlier approved the deal, were also signatories to the petition questioning the constitutionality of the agreement.

They said that their inconsistent stand came only after they received "tremendous and continuing pressure” from the government through an inter-agency task force headed by Espiritu.