KMU to Lucio Tan: heed PAL workers’ demands

Amidst a brewing strike by the Philippine Airlines’ ground employees and cabin crew, labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno called on PAL owner Lucio Tan today to immediately heed the PAL workers’ demands, saying Tan has clearly gone overboard in implementing his anti-worker policies.



“PAL’s workers are sending a clear message to Lucio Tan: stop implementing your anti-worker policies. PAL workers can never take so much. They are only demanding the upholding of their basic rights as workers – to have a decent job, job security and proper compensation, and the right to collectively bargain,” said Elmer “Bong” Labog, KMU chairperson.

“To maintain huge profits throughout the years, Lucio Tan has pressed down workers’ wages and benefits. He has contractualized huge segments of PAL’s workforce through outsourcing and spin-off schemes. He has imposed a 10-year moratorium on CBA negotiations and de facto extended this. The workers want an end to all these,” he added.

PAL’s employees, led by the PAL Employees’ Association or Palea, warned the PAL management of launching a strike, citing PAL’s plan to outsource or spin-off segments of its operations which threaten to displace 2,600 workers. Palea also decried the PAL Management’s refusal, for two years now, to start negotiations with the union for a collective bargaining agreement.

Despite a much-publicized P80-Million package offer to PAL’s flight attendants, the Flight Attendants and Stewards Association of the Philippines or Fasap has expressed its willingness to go on strike. The group cited the PAL management’s refusal to budge on the attendants’ main demand of raising the retirement age of 40 and scrapping PAL’s “no-motherhood” policy.

“Tan, through his spokespersons in the PAL management, is citing profit losses to make PAL workers, and the public as well, accept the present state of affairs in PAL and management moves that do little to address workers’ demands. This is hogwash. The PAL workers are the first people to know if the company is losing or gaining,” Labog said.

“Tan is still the second richest man in the country today, whose net worth continues to grow. And a huge reason for this is his exploitative and anti-worker policies in PAL. There is a limit to his greed, as the recent statements and actions of PAL workers show. While he has been fighting for his superprofits, workers are fighting for social justice,” Labog added.

KMU cited a Forbes Asia Magazine report showing Tan to be the second wealthiest person in the country today, with a net worth of P1.9 Billion. PAL workers also cite PAL’s recent payment of previous debts and buy new aircrafts.

Reposted from: KMU to Lucio Tan: heed PAL workers’ demands

KMU to Aquino: Investigate Lucio Tan’s Profits, Anti-labor Schemes

KMU to Aquino: Investigate Lucio Tan’s Profits, Anti-labor Schemes

As the controversy over the mass resignation of Philippine Airlines’ pilots since last Saturday rages on, labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno called on President Aquino to investigate PAL owner Lucio Tan’s profits and anti-labor schemes, saying labor issues are behind the recent imbroglio in the national flag carrier.

KMU made the call in a picket in front of PAL’s corporate office in Ayala Avenue this morning, where the labor center condemned the business tycoon for “intensifying the exploitation and causing the lay-off of workers” in the airline company.

Attending the picket were members of the PAL Employees’ Union or Palea, the union of PAL’s ground employees, the Laban ng Bagong Palea, KMU, and Anakpawis partylist.



“The PAL management continues to bombard us with Lucio Tan’s canard that the pilots who resigned were merely motivated by personal interests. If there is a party to this issue that has consistently advanced nothing but his personal interests, that is Lucio Tan,” said Roger Soluta, KMU general secretary.

“We are therefore calling on the Aquino regime: investigate and expose Tan’s profiteering and anti-labor schemes. Not only will this get us to the bottom of the pilots’ resignation, more importantly, this will be a first step in improving the worsening lot of PAL workers,” Soluta added.

The labor center said the investigation that it is calling for will force open “no less than a can of worms” that will expose the PAL management’s statements “for what they really are – lies in the service of superprofits.”

“Accusations that the pilots were thinking only of their own interests when they resigned will be refuted by no less than a can of worms of anti-labor schemes: increases in workloads and decreases in wages, illegal termination, moratorium in CBA negotiations, promotion of contractualization, use of dummy corporations, among others,” Soluta added.

“In various venues, and especially during negotiations for collective bargaining agreements, the PAL management is often heard whining about decreasing profits and the possibility of closing down. How could that be, when Lucio Tan continues to be the second richest Filipino with a net profit of P90 billion? When PAL continues to be the top carrier in the country, handling 35% of international flights?”

Soluta said investigating Tan’s profits and labor practices will yield “instructive insights” into the country’s labor laws and policies.

“We will definitely be shocked by how much of what Tan does in PAL and his other companies are illegal. But we will also be shocked by how much of his profiteering and anti-labor schemes are made legal, sanctioned by the country’s anti-worker labor laws and policies,” Soluta concluded.

http://www.bulatlat.com/main/2010/08/05/kmu-to-aquino-investigate-lucio-tan’s-profits-anti-labor-schemes/