Strikers accuse PAL mgm’t of using rotting food, noise to drive them out

MANILA, Philippines—Dismissed workers protesting outside Philippine Airlines’ In-Flight Center (IFC) on Sunday accused the airline management of parking containers of rotting food close to their protest camp, among other forms of “harassment.”

The president of the Philippine Airlines Employees Association (Palea), Gerry Rivera, said the containers of rotting food parked along the gates and walls adjacent to the protest camp since the other week were letting off an odious smell and attracting swarms of flies. Loud music was also being blasted at their camp, he added.

Rivera said Palea had referred the matter to the barangay officials concerned, adding that the odor, the flies and the loud noise were endangering not just the health of unionists but also of the residents of the nearby community of Baltao—as well as PAL’s own security guards who are forced to wear masks and ear plugs.

The other day, unionists charged PAL management with hiring goons who attacked their camp before dawn on Saturday, injuring eight of their members. A bystander reportedly died of a heart attack when the goons and the unionists clashed along MIA Road in Pasay City.

Rivera also slammed PAL for refusing to fly Palea members who had been issued airline tickets as part of their employee benefits before they were retrenched.

“We have a member who flew to the United States  a week ago on a trip-pass benefit but we received a report that PAL is refusing to honor her return trip unless she signs up for the service provider. We are now consulting with our lawyers since PAL is possibly in violation of its commercial obligations under the law,” he said.

The PAL management has denied the charges of harassment and has turned the tables on the unionists.

PAL counsel Clara de Castro said the workers were the ones harassing management, preventing catering trucks from entering and leaving the PAL compound.

The protesters, she said, placed wooden planks with nails on the street and set fire to a box to prevent a PAL truck from leaving the facility on Saturday.

“This is not the first time that former PAL workers prevented PAL employees and vehicles from entering and leaving its facility. But Saturday’s well-documented blocking of a PAL catering van shows how brazen they have become,” De Castro said.

She said PAL lawyers were preparing charges for violation of its right to free and unhampered access to its own property; the right to use its vehicles and buildings; and the right to allow its workers or service providers to enter and leave the facility without being harassed by protesters.

This right, De Castro said, was “absolute” and guaranteed by the Constitution.

The PAL lawyer said libel charges were also being prepared against protesters who claimed that the airline had hired “goons” to disperse their camp. These were “baseless allegations,” she said.

PAL security merely took a defensive stance, she asserted.  “Not one of them ever touched a protester, a streamer, or any part of the protesters’ camp,” De Castro said.

Palea’s lawyers are preparing their own charges against management.

Rivera countered that their camp was not hampering PAL operations since the In-Flight Center, which used to house the catering department, was closed and its dismissed employees were now among the protesters.

He said PAL was probably planning to use the compound to house the new catering employees outsourced from its contractor Sky Kitchen.

As for PAL’s hiring of goons to disperse them, Rivera said this was “confirmed” by one of the attackers who was caught.

“Despite it being the eve of the day of the dead, the forces of good overcame the forces of darkness, workers unity defeated corporate greed. As we earlier vowed, Palea will defend its ‘occupy protest’ camp,” Rivera said in a statement.