PAL workers to join SONA march to ask P-Noy to defend regular jobs

PRESS RELEASE

25 July 2010

Rank and file workers of Philippine Airlines are joining labor groups’ SONA march tomorrow to ask President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III to save their jobs and put an end to the labor contractualization policy. 

Some 500 members of Philippine Airlines Employees Association (PALEA) will join the Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) contingent along the Tandang Sora and Commonwealth Avenues around 10:00 am tomorrow before marching with the multisectoral groups Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) and the Kampanya para sa Makataong Pamunuhay (KAMP) towards the Batasan Complex.  

PALEA members have prepared a replica of a PAL plane where they wrote a message for P-Noy asking the President to stop the planned layoff of some 2,600 PAL employees.  The PALEANs have been demanding in particular that a ‘midnignt decision’ issued by DOLE on June 15, 2010 be reversed.   

PALEA President Gerry Rivera, said the Order is in gross violation of the Labor Code and their existing collective bargaining agreement against labor contracting.

“The DOLE decision, if sustained by the present administration, will make labor contracting in the form of spin-off legal and therefore the contractualization of regular jobs.  Hindi po ito matuwid na landas, Pangulong Noy,” stated Rivera.

Rivera, who is also Partido ng Manggagawa vice chair, warned further that once sustained labor contractualization will be abused to the max, job security will be dead, and all benefits due to regular workers will disappear.

The June 15 decision held that, “the intended closure of the Philippine Airlines In-Flight Catering operations, Airport Services Operations and Call Center Reservation Operations and the consequent severance from employment of all affected employees as reported to the DOLE Regional Offices, as well as the contracting out of these operations to the named service providers, are based on lawful ground and all in a valid exercise of managerial prerogative and as such valid and lawful in all respects.”

The Partido ng Manggagawa meanwhile challenged the new administration to formulate a “labor-first policy” if it wants to depart from age-old cheap labor policy and the foreign investment-led job creation strategy.

“Walang boss na busabos (there is no such thing as a “deprived boss”),” concludes Magtubo, taking from P-Noy’s “kayo ang boss ko” declaration in his June 30 inaugural speech.