MANILA, Philippines - The wildcat strike staged by the Philippine Airlines Employees Association (PALEA) last month was a “tactical error” as far as the militant group Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) is concerned.
Elmer Labog, KMU chairman told The STAR that labor strikes should not be held in times of calamities.
“Even the PALEA members who are on duty were not aware that they were already on strike,” he said.
He added that the strike has caused confusion instead of generating public support.
“A labor strike is like waging a war. You have to mobilize the whole group to participate in mass action. It must be carried out frontally not discreetly as what happened during the PALEA strike where workers just stop performing their jobs,” he said.
Labog, however, said that while they criticized PALEA’s wildcat strike, they are against the contractualization of the labor sector.
“As far as we are concerned there are only two types of employment status in the country, permanent and casual employees,” he said.