Just solve it

The decision of Australia’s flag carrier Qantas Airlines to suspend its operations amid unresolved labor-management dispute should serve as eye-opener to the similar protracted labor-management problem bugging our own flag carrier, the Philippine Airlines (PAL).

The Qantas management decision to shut down operations stranded an estimated 70,000 passengers it services in 22 cities around the world and threatened to damage Australia’s economy.

Qantas flies four times a week (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday) from Manila to Sydney and Brisbane using Airbus 330 aircraft. Qantas services returned to normal yesterday their international and domestic flights after a 46-hour grounding of its entire fleet due to a bitter industrial dispute.

News from Australia reported the shock grounding of the entire fleet last Saturday as announced by Qantas chief Alan Joyce, dramatically escalating a long-running feud with their airline unions which oppose an Asia-focused restructuring plan of the airline management. It only ended when the Australian government’s industrial tribunal ordered last Monday an end to the grounding, and months of strikes and other industrial action by baggage handlers, engineers and pilots.

According to wire reports, Fair Work Australia gave the airline and unions 21 days to settle their dispute over wages and conditions or else they would undergo forced arbitration that would see a decision imposed on them. Prime Minister Julia Gillard has accused the airline of “extremist behavior” in its actions and made clear she was furious. “I do not believe that this extreme (shutdown) action should have been taken,” the Australian female Prime Minister bristled.

The Qantas experience of Australia is precisely what our own government leadership headed by President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III should watch out for to prevent a similar scenario happening in PAL. Our flag carrier has its own history of tumultuous labor unrests that have crippled PAL operations in the past.

In 1998, PAL pilots staged a crippling strike that stranded thousands of passengers in the affected overseas routes, including those in the Philippines. It prompted no less than former President Joseph Estrada to intervene in the PAL management-labor dispute.

A few months after assuming office at Malacañang Palace in 1998, Estrada found his administration in the middle of another PAL labor-management row that threatened to bring down the flag carrier out of Philippine skies. Estrada called to Palace PAL owner Lucio Tan and convinced the latter to consider national interest in his corporate decision-making.

While doing his own backdoor talks at the Palace, Estrada instructed his Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma to negotiate with the PAL labor unions to accept a compromise agreement with Tan in the common national desire to help save the country’s flag carrier from closing shop. Estrada was able to bring both sides to agree to this sort of détente while allowing the judicial process to resolve the dispute of the two feuding camps.

PAL later on won a ruling last year from the Court of Appeals on its P730 million damage suit against the Airline Pilots Association of the Philippines for staging this illegal strike. But there seems to be no end to the PAL labor-management row.

Early this September, PAL obtained a $50 million line of credit from Credit Suisse to fund most of its planned spin-off for its catering, reservations and ground service divisions. The bulk of the money will be used to pay the severance package offered to about 2,400 PAL workers who would be laid off by this planned move. This outsourcing program is said to restructure and make the airline leaner and more competitive in the long term.

Naturally, the outsourcing program would result to loss of employment of all the members of the Philippine Airlines Employees Association (PALEA). And of course, PALEA loses its reason for existence as a collective bargaining agent for employee-members. As a gesture of goodwill, PAL management offered affected ground crew and other employees first crack in employment by the outsourcing companies.

Militant members of PALEA staged instead a wildcat strike. To fill the slack of manpower, PAL management advanced the implementation of their outsourcing program a few days earlier than scheduled last October 1.

As if problems with PALEA were not enough, PAL management found itself in another labor row predicament with the Flight Attendants and Stewards Association of the Philippines (FASAP). This was after the Supreme Court (SC) recalled last October 11 a ruling by a division of the High Tribunal that declared illegal the retrenchment of 1,400 flight attendants in 1998. It opened up old wounds already sewn during Estrada’s term.

Unfortunately for President Aquino, he has to deal with these latest developments that threaten anew the viability of our country’s flag carrier under new circumstances. P-Noy pointed out PAL “is in distress” and the airline firm “needs a reformatting of their corporation to survive.” As he aptly cited, this has to be balanced with the country’s national interest.

As far as President Aquino is concerned, the national interest as applied in the case of PAL is defined by the interests of an estimated ten million Filipinos overseas which he said “outweigh” the 2,000 or so that were affected in PALEA.

“There is no perfect solution to this mess but it is part and parcel of the changing realities with the economic situation in the entire world,” P-Noy stressed during an open forum last month with foreign and local journalists.

The presidential statements did not appease but further incensed hardcore strikers in PALEA. In fact, some of them have even engaged in sabotage attempts and destructive means to get back at PAL management. In the meantime, the hapless passengers of PAL become collateral damage in the pursuit of narrow self-interest. These people should not take it out on PAL passengers who have to bear with inconveniences inflicted upon them just so strikers can get back at management.

Coming up with “perfect solution” is not asked of President Aquino, but quickly solve it, he must.