The Philippine Online Chronicles

The workplace is a jungle—just ask anybody who has ever tried to earn a living.

Working isn’t just going to the office, typing up a few forms, going to lunch, going home and getting some money in your bank account every 15 days. There are a lot of things in between, such as fair treatment, overtime pay, night differentials and dignified working conditions, which some workers and employers sometimes forget about. Often, the “bottom-line” takes full precedence over such details, leading to dissatisfied employees and harassed bosses.

Labor cases in the Philippines are many, messy and prolonged, due to theirsheer number and complicatedness. The Department of Labor and Employment's (DOLE) labor relations arms are often swamped with cases, leading DOLE to prioritize emptying its labor case dockets in its National Development Plan, Asst. Sec. Reydeluz Conferido said during the Diamond Lecture Series in Cebu on October 9, which was held in the Cebu Doctor's University.

The department's goal, Conferido said, is to try and get cases in and out of DOLE in a week. “Project SpED (Speedy and Efficient Delivery of Labor Justice),” announced to the public in September, aims for the faster disposition of pending labor cases.

This goal, however, may be better served by an informed labor force, and so DOLE last year started the Diamond Lecture Series, which is intended to inform workers, employers and labor experts and initiate dialogue between them.

Last year was for experts

Last year, DOLE tackled “labor mismatch” in their talks, which were mostly attended by employers and labor experts. This year, however, the agency decided to bring their expertise to potential employees—students around the country. Cebu was the last stop of the lecture caravan, which also inclued in its itinerary Naga City (University of Sta. Isabel), Cagayan de Oro (Mindanao Polytechnic State College) and Baguio City (University of Baguio).

Labor mismatch, simply put, is having jobseekers with the wrong set of skills available for a job opening. Analysts and decision-makers consider it a major problem, as it keeps unemployment rates high—people can't get into jobs they are not qualified for, or if they do, they may leave their jobs quickly, as they don't have the right knowledge for the tasks at hand.

This year's Diamond Lecture Series, with the theme “Balik-Tanaw Bagong Pananaw,” focused on the concept “decent work” or in Filipino, “marangal na trabaho.” The discussion was in line with DOLE's goal to lessen its worker-employer mediation workload, as an informed populace may mean less workplace conflicts. Less overseas Filipino workers coming back home in coffins, less people living on the tail-ends of chickens.

Marangal na trabaho

Work, Conferido said, is an exchange. Workers are expected to be efficient and productive, and employers must care for their employees the same way they care for their businesses. Companies are supposed to follow the four pillars of decent work set by the International Labor Organization (ILO) such as fundamental rights at work, employment and income opportunities, social protection and security and social dialogue and tripartism.Without these, workers have no dignity of labor.

Jobs are hard. Not only are they difficult to find, they are equally hard to give. They can also be difficult to keep. Thus a high unemployment rate, according to Prof. Fernando Fajardo, executive director of the Cebu Business Club. The Philippines, he said, has a high unemployment rate compared with other Asian countries: 10.37 percent for 2001-2008, a large number compared with Indonesia's 8.86 percent, Malaysia's 3.44 percent, Vietnam's 5.59 percent and Taiwan's 4.26 percent.

Graduates of medical courses in Cebu, Sonia Lopez of St. Paul's College Foundation, Inc. said, are finding it increasingly hard to find jobs in the country, and so many of them seek their fortunes abroad. “Hospitals don't hire,” though they don't have full staffs, she lamented, “maybe because of budget cuts.”

Despite this reality, however, and DOLE's urging that graduates try for jobs their country needs them to take, students insist on becoming what they've set their minds to be, despite the realities of today's labor playing field.

Mark Joseph Labella, a laboratory science student from the Cebu Doctor's University who became an instant celebrity when he stepped up to a challenge by Conferido and won not only freebies but P1000 cash as well, said he still wants to become a doctor despite the lack of local employment opportunities.

“I want to help others and serve, because it's better to give than to receive,” the 25-year-old said. He will even consider being a provincial doctor, as “being a doctor is not just about the money.”

A noble aspiration, perhaps, but one not everyone can afford, as evidenced by the victims and perpetrators of illegal recruitment in the country.

The workplace is a jungle, and sometimes, despite the authorities' efforts, all workers can do is scramble for survival.

Photos by author. Licensed under cc-by-nc-sa-3.0-Philippines.