Government hit for abandoning airport employees

The government, particularly the Department of Transportation and Communications, has been accused of refusing to heed the cry for help of aviation industry workers who will be rendered jobless when the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3 starts operations next year.

In a letter to Rep. Roseller Barinaga, chairman of the House labor committee, the Philippine Airlines Employes Association (PALEA) said it appears that the government, particularly Transportation and Communications Secretary Pantaleon Alvarez, has no plans of helping protect the interests of workers.

"It will be the very first government-mandated mass retrenchment of seasoned and skilled workers in the history of Philippine labor," Ed Oredina, PALEA mobilization committee chairman, said, referring to the government-Philippine International Air Terminal Co. Inc. (PIATCO) contract for the construction of the Terminal 3.

PALEA said some 10,000 workers at Terminals 1 and 2 who are employed by PAL and concessionaires there will be dislocated when the new terminal opens next year.

It asid the contract gave exclusivity to the new operator, PIATCO, to operate the entire airport complex and make it the sole international passenger terminal in Luzon. As such, PIATCO can choose its service providers.

"The present service providers of Terminals 1 and 2 are PIATCO’s competitors. So naturally, PIATCO won’t bring them in," Oredina said.

The airport workers said instead of lifting a finger to help them, the DOTC has the temerity to defend the contract and claim that there will be no layoffs.

"How will there be no layoffs when the present concessionaires or service operators in Terminals 1 and 2 cannot carry over their operations to the new terminal. This means the closure of all concessionaires or service companies in the Terminals 1 and 2," said Jun Agan, president of the MIASCOR Workers Union.

Oredina and Agan said the present workers of PAL and the service providers of Terminals 1 and 2 will be replaced by new and less experienced contractual workers.