Filipinos need to change their labour “leaders”. They spout nothing but obsolete Cold War-era slogans every labour day and this year is no different. This year’s call is, guess what, “unite” against [ blah blah blah ]. What is this year’s blah blah blah issue? Contractualisation — specifically the call to stamp out the use of contractual employees in favour of hiring for permanent employment.
Famous sex siren Raquel Welch was once said to have said:
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Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results each time.
There are, of course, some gains to be expected in labour demanding certain reasonable things in exchange for their “hard work” — like a salary, for example. But because Filipinos exist within a free market (or would like to think that they do), how much salary they get is determined by something called the Law of Supply and Demand. The good news is, a lot of demand for not-so-plenty workers pushes up wages. The bad news is, too little demand within an enormous supply of workers crushes wages. With that crunch comes a weak position to demand other nice things — like permanent employnment, for example, in a market of highly replaceable workers. The Philippines, suffice to say, is on the Bad News side of the equation. It is a labour market where these two confronting realities exist — a supply of warm bodies in wage-crushing numbers and a weak position for these warm bodies to demand more.
Do the usual garden-variety commie “activists” like Renato Reyes address these realities in the idiotic “activism” they have been scamming Filipino workers with all these years?
Very likely not.
You cannot keep demanding stuff when you are in no position to negotiate. This obvious fact is in the pathetic addiction of the Philippine economy to the remittances of Overseas Foreign Workers (OFWs) today. OFWs represent workers who have given up the “fight” Reyes encourages them to fight and, instead, voted with their feet to find opportunities elsewhere.
What Filipino workers really need are solutions that address the reality that they are bordeline economic liabilities. Thus, the solution they need are means to convert them from the mere liabilities that they are into true assets to the economy. This can be done by making them more marketable and more productive workers. How can this be achieved? Simple. By equipping them with the right skills, knowledge, education, and attitude.
Do the current crop of “activists” focus on pushing these asset-building solutions and less on wasting time and energy on dead-end “movements” and moronic slogans? Absolutely not, because most of these “movements” are spurred more by political objectives (branded using words like “revolution”, for example) rather than true community objectives.
The scam that is today’s “labour activism” in the Philippines needs to stop. Filipino workers need to focus on building capability to compete in a rapidly-changing market and less on finding new excuses to wallow in that victimhood that these traditional activists keep drilling into their heads.
Filipino workers need a new mindset. They need new forms of activism. Most important of all, they need more modern leaders and not Cold War fossils like Renato Reyes who belongs in a museum and not on Manila’s streets wasting people’s time shouting trite slogans in yet another two-bit street rally.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
these communist lean labor unions knew that by signing EO against contractualization will do harm for thw country. how many millions of uneducated filipinos now we have? they won’t get a permanent job unless they meet qualifications for a certain job. these employers need qualifications to be permanent and if they don’t get the job they will again keep shouting on the streets?
Labor slogans, or that obsolete labor leader like: Renato Reyes, will never solve the problems of our Filipino workers. All they do is : protest, shout slogans on the streets; and align themselves to political parties. Some of these labor leaders, are being used by politicians, to further their political agendas.
The labor market is changing, from time to time. Robots with Artificial Intelligence, will soon be replacing humans, in the field of manual work. Caregivers, will soon be replaced by Robots. Including the nursing profession.
What have these obsolete Labor leaders, offer for these new innovations.
They should concentrate instead to the OFW problem. OFWs are being maltreated in foreign countries, where they work. Some are undocumented, and are working in foreign countries. Some don’t even know their labor contracts; and they are working in foreign countries.
Instead to the rallies, and speeches, for the celebration of Labor Day. They should focus on the solutions of labor problems, we are facing today.
These noisy Labor Leaders like Babsy Reyes are part of the problem and not part of the solution. They are there in the streets shouting slogans for few pennies and free lunch. That’s how cheap the followers of Reyes are.
Dramatic uprising of stupidity can start from nowhere and only be seen when it reaches it’s climax.
Hey,,,hey…mr. reyes IS part of the labor force with unique competitive capabilities demanding above common wages..his props (slogans and mantra), speech content and associations may be obsolete, jaded and very tired but productive just the same. Degree of productivity? Almost NIL…..
These Commie Groups like the KADAMAY are demanding unreasonably. They demand Wage increase when they are not even eorkers but plain Paid Rallyists.