The union Philippine Airlines Employees' Association (PALEA) hailed a settlement agreement signed today with the management of Philippine Airlines (PAL) that provides for the re-employment of some 600 members as regular workers. In a private ceremony in a downtown hotel in Mandaluyong at noon, officers of PAL and PALEA signed the agreement.

The imperative to unite and fight for the dignity of workers is the spark for the formation of Nagkaisa which embraces the major labor centers and groups in the Philippines for the first time since the 1980’s. The unity forged among some 40 labor organizations to advance the struggle for immediate and strategic demands is a key component of the renewal and revival of the labor movement. A strong militant labor movement is the foundation for the working class to regain its place as the tribune of the people and vanguard of social change.

Founded in 1941, PAL and its unionized workforce have a 65 year history of working together collaboratively to ensure the company’s success. In fact, to help PAL recover from the 1997 Asian financial crisis, its workers agreed to suspend their collective bargaining agreement and accept across the board salary and benefit freezes for more than a decade. To reward its employees' loyalty and sacrifice, in 2009 PAL management announced it would implement a “fire and rehire” outsourcing scheme that would slash workers’ salaries and benefits in violation of the collective bargaining agreement PAL has signed with its workers. The scheme, announced during a routine meeting with elected union leaders, would have allowed the company to illegally fire more than 3,500

Amid growing concern for the human rights situation the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston visited the Philippines in 2007. He found that in the name counter-insurgency operations against the armed-wing of the Communist Party, the New People’s Army, government killings had “eliminated civil society leaders, including human rights defenders, trade unionists and land reform advocates...”