By Jerome Small
“Ang laban ng PALEA ay laban ng lahat” – “The struggle of PALEA is the struggle of everyone”.
For over six months, more than 2,000 members of the Philippine Airlines Employees Association (PALEA) have maintained a protest camp at Manila International Airport. This is a major regional dispute about outsourcing.
The workers have maintained their stand through four typhoons and two attacks by armed thugs. While they have yet to win their fight for regular jobs, their determined resistance has had a major impact on politics and the workers’ struggle in the Philippines and beyond.
Owned by the second richest man in the Philippines, Lucio Tan, Philippine Airlines (PAL) reported a profit of $US72 million last financial year. But not content with this return, PAL proposed an “outsourcing” scheme involving all of its ground staff – baggage handlers, check in staff, catering staff, technical workers and call centre workers.
Workers would have to reapply for their old jobs with “new” service providers (in fact, these companies are connected to Lucio Tan’s family or business associates) – often at a salary of half or even less their former rate. The workers would lose their job security and their seniority.
Because of the way Philippines labour law works, the outsourced workers would not be eligible to join PALEA. In fact, this “outsourcing” scam is one of the key ways that the ruling class in the Philippines has successfully busted union after union over the last twenty years. Perhaps emboldened by this, PAL management thought the workers and their union would quickly fold.
The workers, however, had other ideas.
On 27 September last year, PALEA members attended their work stations but refused to leave. In dramatic scenes, union members were physically ejected from the terminal by security and riot police. Once out of the terminal, the workers set up a protest camp on airport grounds, which, for the last six months, has been the centre of the workers’ resistance to outsourcing.
The protest camp has served over the months as a kitchen, a medical clinic, and the scene of parties for Halloween,Christmas and more. The camp has also been a base for the very regular protests that PALEA members conduct at the Court of Appeal, which is considering their case, as well as the Congress and Senate, the Department of Labor and Employment, and in the streets of Manila.
After the first few days, PAL was able to get back in the air. But over 2,000 experienced workers have refused to sign over to the new outsourced service providers, and there has been a widespread boycott of PAL in solidarity with the workers. From a profit, PAL has plunged to a loss, having to offer heavily discounted tickets to boost a slump in passenger loads.
Many of the senior managers at PAL have paid for this crisis in the airline with their jobs. In early April Lucio Tan sold a major stake in PAL to the giant Philippines conglomerate the San Miguel Corporation, who have replaced most of the top management involved in the outsourcing scheme.
San Miguel is no stranger to attacks on workers rights – it has been calculated that, for every hundred contract workers in a San Miguel enterprise, there are only 25 regular, direct employees. But the change in management represents at least a potential shift in the dispute, and is a testament to the strength of the workers’ resistance.
The effect of PALEA’s resistance goes beyond the airline itself, however. In a clear response to the struggle at PAL, the Department of Labor in the Philippines has been compelled to issue new guidelines covering contractual employees.
These new regulations are designed to stop workers being employed on rolling five month contracts, a common device for bosses to avoid permanent employment with the rights that brings to the employee. Of course the strength of these new regulations has yet to be tested in the courts, and will be worth nothing unless backed by union organisation, but it is a sign that the political establishment is under some pressure.
Political life in the Philippines this year has been dominated by the long-running impeachment of Chief Justice Corona of the Supreme Court. While much of this affair has the feel of a falling out between different factions with the ruling elite, the PAL dispute has also featured.
The Chief Justice and his wife were both holders of Philippine Airlines platinum cards allowing unlimited business class travel. PAL markets these cards to its business clients with the slogan “for friends of the boss”. It seems that Corona was just that last year when, after a torturous 13-year legal process, 1,400 flight attendants won an unfair dismissal suit against PAL. Within a month, and without a hearing, the Supreme Court decided to put aside its own decision on the basis of a supposed minor technicality pointed out by Lucio Tan’s lawyer!
When the courts and the political system can be bought and sold so easily, it’s clear that justice can only be won by our side’s strength and organisation. As well as the vibrant and long-running protest camp, PALEA has inspired support from unions all over the fractured political scene of the Philippines, as well as beyond in the church and civil society organisations.
International solidarity has been a feature of the dispute. The industrial traditions of solidarity are well established in the global maritime industry – as seen recently in the outpouring of support for wharfies in the Port of Auckland. In civil aviation, however, the other great global transport network, there is a lot still to be done. In this respect, PALEA is leading by example, protesting for the Qantas workers last year, for the Auckland wharfies in February, and in solidarity with the global Occupy movement.
A trip to Australia before Christmas from PALEA Vice President Alnem Pretencio raised over $10,000 to support for the picket camp over the holiday period. A recent return visit, with Wilson Fortaleza of the Labor Party of the Philippines, saw Alnem address hundreds of workers at Melbourne airport, the Sydney docks, and many other meetings.
International airlines such as Qantas and Philippine Airlines (PAL) are locked in cut throat competition in this most globalised industry. They are under constant pressure to boost profits at the expense of their workers. While our bosses preach competition, we have only one weapon in response – solidarity.
Given the very similar attacks on regular employment at workplaces around the world, given the identical but slower-moving attacks of Qantas management, given the recent focus on the problems of insecure work here in Australia, the reaction of so many workers to hearing the PALEA story was no surprise. It was as spontaneous as it was heart felt – The struggle of PALEA is the struggle of us all.
