Philippine Airlines is a Scrooge—international labor rights group
by Juan Manggagawa

A Washington DC-based international labor rights watchdog has included Philippine Airlines (PAL) in its list of worst companies for the year. PAL joins giant companies Dole, Wal-Mart and Hershey in the “Scrooge list” of the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) for the “use of intimidation and sometimes violence, in the U.S. and abroad, to violate workers’ internationally recognized right to organize.”

The Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) welcomed PAL’s description as a Scrooge “since Lucio Tan stole Christmas from some 2,400 employees and their families.” Renato Magtubo, PM chair, said that “PAL has been naughty not nice to its workers so Santa did not grant its wish of a profitable year.” PAL has announced that it will end the year with losses to due its failed outsourcing plan and high fuel prices.

In its report, ILRF explained that “Some of this year’s Scrooges, such as Dole and Wal-Mart, are repeat offenders—giant corporations that refuse to uphold their responsibility to their direct employees and to workers in their supply chains. Hershey receives Scrooge status for the first time—an accolade long overdue—as the chapter exposes an ongoing pattern of the company’s neglect of workers’ rights and refusal to be more accountable to workers in its supply chain. The case of Philippine Airlines illustrates an increasingly common trend among corporations, the flexibilization of work, and how when workers protest against outsourcing, they are locked-out and fired.”

“This holiday season corporate greed at PAL is shining through,” the ILRF report asserted. The group is supporting PALEA by calling on the public to boycott PAL and its sister low-cost carrier Air Philippines until the workers are reinstated to their regular jobs.

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