Dismissal of PAL strike notice sought

MANILA, Philippines - A group of Philippine Airlines (PAL) employees has asked the National Conciliation and Mediation Board to dismiss what they called a fake strike notice filed by former officers of the Philippine Airlines Employees Association (PALEA).

In a manifestation for intervention, PAL employees Renato Ebio, Danilo Hermoso, Mercedes Ines, Teodoro Jordan and Arnel Mangalindan said former PALEA president Gerardo Rivera and the other union officers “have no authority to file a strike notice as they could not constitute a quorum to validly exercise the association’s functions.”

The petitioners noted that except for Eugene Soriano, those occupying the positions of president, vice president, secretary and auditor of PALEA were no longer employees of PAL since 2011.

As non-employees, they have lost their PALEA membership based on the union’s by-laws, the group said.

According to the group, a notice of strike, strike vote and a work stoppage are major decisions requiring approval of the association’s board of directors through a resolution.

“There is no duly constituted, legitimate body of PALEA officers,” the petitioners said. “The preceding set of officers who were elected to serve a five-year term had served their terms, which expired in March 2015.”

“Without a duly constituted set of PALEA officers, there is no way that PALEA can enact a board resolution calling for a strike unless these individuals misrepresent themselves as union officers,” the manifestation read.

The petitioners claimed that Rivera’s group filed the strike notice to conceal “their hidden agenda to once again dissipate union funds under their control in the guise of concerted action by the association.”

“In fact, Rivera’s group is appealing a recent decision of the Bureau of Labor Relations removing him and 11 others from the PALEA board. They were no longer employees of PAL at the time of the election of union officers,” they added.