Early retirement age may lead to strike; PAL says union agreed to it

MANILA, Philippines - Why retire flight attendants at age 40?

This, according to a flight attendants' union, is the reason why around 1,600 cabin crew of flag carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) are threatening to stop work in a month's time.

Andy Ong, Flight Attendants Union of the Philippines vice-president, said PAL flight attendants are protesting the discriminatory labor practices of management that require flight attendants to retire at age 40.

"The issue here is not just the salary. The major issue is the age and gender discrimination of the flight attendants. For your info, the flight attendants who came in at 2000 until now are being asked to retire at 40. At 40, they are jobless.," he told ABS-CBN's Umagang Kay Ganda.

Ong said the issue of the lower retirement age has been part of collective bargaining agreement (CBA) negotiations since 2000 but was always being set aside by PAL management.

He said, however, that the union decided to set its foot down in 2007 and not sign any CBA until the retirement age is returned to 60.

"In the Labor Code, the retirement age is 65 but we are asking to let the flight attendants retire at 60. In some American airlines, retirement age is 75. All we are asking for is a reasonable retirement age. Besides, this is in violation of the Magna Carta for Women," he said.

He said the delay in the CBA has led to non-increase of flight attendants' salaries for the past 3 years.

"We do have negotiations but PAL management always tells us that the company is losing money. However, why were they giving increases to other employees? Pilots, ground crew and PAL management all had increases except the flight attendants," he said.

Ong said the flight attendants have already filed notice about the possible work stoppage so that the public will be informed of the impending strike.

"We want to say sorry to the public but we first need to explain why we are going on strike. We started our process last week so it's usually 1 month," he said.

Retirement age agreement

For his part, PAL President Jaime Bautista admitted that cabin crew hired since 2001 are required to retire at age 40. He said male cabin crew hired before 2001 are allowed to retire at 55 while female cabin crew retire at age 50.

"This is the result of a negotiation between the PAL management and union in 2000 so it is an understanding between the management and union. Other airlines retire cabin crew as young as 35. Singapore Airlines does this," he said.

Bautista said PAL management decided to lower the retirement age because "we want [the flight attendants] to be physically fit because they need to attend to the passengers especially during times of emergency."

"Retirement age is a negotiated contract with the union. We are implementing programs to make PAL a leaner organization," he said.

The PAL president admitted that the flag carrier has been cutting the number of cabin crew in some flights, without breaching civil aviation rules. He said PAL flights to the US are manned by 16 flight attendants instead of 18. "In some international carriers, they only have 15 cabin crew in a 747. We don't see any reason why we cannot do that," he said.

Bautista also denied allegations that PAL cabin crew are overworked. He said PAL cabin crew work only 70 hours a month, which is lower than the 100-hour a month maximum work load required for flight attendants.

Negotiations with PAL pilots deadlocked

The impending strike of PAL flight attendants is the latest crisis to hit the flag carrier. Since Friday, around 35 domestic and international flights of PAL were disrupted after 25 A320 pilots resigned.

On Monday, Cabinet secretaries from the transportation, justice, and labor departments met with PAL officials and the pilots in separate meetings but both sides only aired their respective positions on various issues.

The Association of Pilots in the Philippines earlier said the PAL pilots resigned due to moves by management to transfer them to sister company Air Philippines, for lower pay. PAL recently transferred part of its 150-seat A320 fleet to the smaller carrier.

Bautista earlier gave the pilots an ultimatum of 7 days to report to work or risk facing criminal and administrative charges. He admitted that many pilots are being enticed to other airlines who offer as much as P12 million in annual pay.

"We want them all back. We want them to serve Philippine Airlines if they still want to work with us. If they really want to resign, we ask that they respect the terms of our agreement, give us sufficient notice time to replace them and not cancel flights because of lack of pilots," he said.