To jumpstart the campaign against endo or
contractualization at the Philippines Airlines (PAL), the union Philippine
Airlines Employees’ Association (PALEA) picketed the company’s Inflight Center (IFC)
near the NAIA Terminal 2. The renewed actions are spurred on by the promise of
incoming President Rodrigo Duterte to end endo.
Last year, just before Duterte run for
president, he met leaders of PALEA in Davao and expressed his opposition to
contractualization. PALEA and the militant group Partido Manggagawa (PM) are
now asking the President elect to make good on his promise to stop
contractualization.
Some 100 PALEA members held a rally on the
road leading to the Terminal 2 for about one hour and then marched on to the PAL
Nichols office to continue the protest until noon. Later in the afternoon,
PALEA officers attended at mediation hearing at the National Conciliation and
Mediation Board regarding the pending labor dispute with PAL.
Bong Palad, PALEA national secretary said
that “PALEA is calling on PAL to comply with the settlement agreement they
offered to PALEA and forged by the two parties in 2013. Specifically PALEA demands
the implementation of the re-employment provision in the agreement.”
In September 2011, some 2,600 PAL regular workers
were terminated and outsourced to become agency workers. After a two-year
fight, PALEA and PAL forged a deal to settle the labor dispute of 2011 yet some
600 retrenched members have not been re-employed as provided for in the
agreement.
PM also challenged on Duterte to prove that “change
is coming” by rectifying the injustice committed by outgoing president Benigno
Aquino who approved the PAL outsourcing scheme and
later threatened an economic sabotage case against PALEA for launching a
protest that paralyzed flights.
PM chair Rene Magtubo argued that “A clear
and determined path to end endo will be set if the contractualization scheme and
scam at PAL is reversed. by implementation
of the settlement agreement with PALEA.”
Photos of the rally can be accessed at https://www.facebook.com/jerry.bagsic/posts/1133381940025534
May 26, 2016
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