Reflectionson Labor Day: Labor pains and gains
Today, the labor sector, spearheaded by unions is poised to stage massive demonstrations and other forms of concerted actions. They shall be supported by militant students, youth, urban poor, farmers, fisherfolks, and some religious leaders. They will bring placards and streamers with flaming red letters, some with symbols of socialist and communist movements. A number of them will burn the effigies of President Duterte, Secretary Bebot Bello, and US President Trump representing US imperialism. There might be some bloody clashes between the police and demonstrators. The usual police maximum tolerance may give in when marchers throw molotov bombs and firecrackers at the police cordon.
The issues (as we already know) are contractualization, starvation wages, illegal dismissals of casuals, the government's own contractuals called job order workers, and the OFWs (not just in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia) exploitation, oppression, maltreatment, and injustice. The workers will also raise issues on the alleged delays and corruption in the labor tribunals, the anti-union and anti-labor practices of some employers, the unfair labor practices, and union busting by some employers, some of them aliens. The unions shall blame the government for failing to issue an executive order to end all forms of contractualization. They will also denounce "starvation wages" and violations of general labor standards. They will call attention to unsafe, unhealthy, and unsafe worksites and workplaces, violations of occupational safety and health standards.
In fairness to the Duterte government, it should be mentioned here that ''endo'' and ''5-5-5'' practices have already been stopped. It is contractualization that cannot be and should not be abolished, otherwise our economy shall lose its strategic competitive advantage in the global and regional business arena. It should be recalled that this government has increased the SSS pension, which the PNoy administration refused to do. Free tuition in state universities and colleges for the children of the poor working class has been ordered by the president. Also, free irrigation was made available to all farmers. From the times of Marcos (and even before), irrigation has always been paid for by the struggling farmers. The certificate of land ownership had been issued to the long-suffering farmers in Hacienda Luisita.
There are still many unresolved issues and many unsolved problems. But the Duterte government is hardly two years old. The decisive action by Duterte and Bello should be given credit. The continuing repatriation of distressed OFWs and the improvement of our Philippine Overseas Labor Offices are some of the initiatives being undertaken relentlessly by the current administration. In the local scene, the Build, Build, Build program of the government generates hundreds of thousands of jobs for the unskilled and semi-skilled.
This government is not perfect. It has a lot of areas for improvement. But definitely, it is not anti-poor or anti-labor.
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