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by Arnold De Villa
November 6, 2010
Earlier this week, the Department of Labor and Employment in the Philippines approved the Philippine Air Line’s decision to lay off 2,600 employees as a result of outsourcing some of their services (Philip Tubeza, Philippine Inquirer). Although the workers were offered a million pesos of possible separation pay, many of the workers clamored for job security instead. And so do most of the workers in other parts of the world.
According to the CIA World Fact Book, the current unemployment rate in the Philippines is at 7.4%. In Illinois, the Department of Employment security stated 9.9% of unemployment as of last month. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate of the entire United States is pegged at 9.2% as of last September.
Whatever these rates are, up or down, accurate or not, there is someone who is in between jobs, someone who just lost a job, or someone who just finished College and cannot land a job. In the Filipino community, I heard that the overtones of general unemployment have kept itself within the whispers of soft voices. Perhaps, our dominant presence in the health care industry, have somewhat buffered the pains against this portion of a widespread economic crisis. Nonetheless, there are many families who are hurting and many workers who are tormented about the thought of losing their job. Employment security is probably a thing of the past. Unless the employer, the employee, and the employing entity all belong to one and the same individual, it seems that job security is an obsolete reality. Corporate fidelity has passed its peak while employee loyalty has been replaced by survival.
In the Philippine context, as the soon-to-be former workers of PAL would reflect, employment security is a cherished commodity. The job market back home has been notorious in discriminating against age, academic status, college background, personal connections and even against those without the assets of a nice mien. It is not easy to find a job as a recent College graduate. It is less easy to find another job after being let go from one. Besides the increasing numbers of Call centers back home, the rising surge of overseas Filipino workers have kept the Philippine economy afloat. Until the doors of foreign employment are shut down or until all OFW’s go back home, it seems that the unemployment rate in the Philippines is not that bad.
Enter the labor union. They might be doing better. Collective bargaining agreements still seem to work in some occasions. They still believe and live according to their mission of a higher than normal living wage and job permanence at all cost; both of which are not bad at all. But are they right? Do they still have the same impact as they used to before some of their leaders mysteriously disappeared? They have been targeting giants like Wal-Mart recently to no avail. I personally know some of their elected officials and how they meet and where they hold their conventions. It sometimes makes someone wonder why common workers would fund the livelihood of some of these officials. There is no doubt that there are so many good labor union workers and organizers. But when some of them demand benefits without understanding the capital side of business, when some of them think that a union worker should retain employment regardless of competence, through long term contracts, then there must be something not right. After all, the survival of a corporation guarantees the employment of a worker and not the other way around.
Job permanence, employment security- not a single worker would refuse such a thought. In the same token, there is not a single worker either who would not replace a secure job with another secure job that offers a better compensation. The free market enterprise benefits both the capitalist and the labor elements of any business entity. The invisible hand of the unseen free market forces have played fairly within a fair environment. For this reason, is job security a portion of the free market enterprise? Of course it is not. If the market determines the survival of a business entity and such business entity provides employment; and if the said business entity stumbles and falls within the cracks of a free market system, then all workers go down with it together with their employment.
Among our elderly workers, many of whom were employed by one company and retired through that one single employer, the central thought is still in the permanence and security of a job, the one which every employee could keep before they leave and retire in glory. The much younger generation that succeeded them seem to take pride in having a long litany of employers as part of a contrived work experience. Many of this younger generation seem to whine more and ask more at the same time. They whine about doing too much work and they ask for more paid holidays and more paid time off. There seems to have an imbalance between worker’s rights, worker’s job description and employer’s rights and employer’s responsibilities. And after that of course, they bring out the megaphone, the placards and the picket line. We are back to zero.
Job security is an oxymoron. It is never secure. Worker talents and individual achievements are the only secure and permanent elements every worker should possess and strive to have. And as many inspirational and self-help books would say, as long as we make ourselves indispensable for any job, as long as we exert all the passion we have in anything that we do, the reality of unemployment will only be a transitory event. As long as we improve ourselves, opening possibilities for radical changes, exposing ourselves to diversified learning, the quest for a compensated work will not be that tough.
Sad to say, these things are easier said than done, especially within the Philippine market economy. Job security back home is a coveted reality. My father had it and my brother had it too, both of them having had less than three jobs and stayed in one for a long stretch of time before they retired. It was then. It could still be now, but then the fair play is not. The opportunities are less. The chances are even fewer.
As the mortality table changes in the quantity of human longevity, the dynamic changes in our environment will even be more volatile than it was before. The thought of keeping one job from the inception of our working abilities until the day we decide to have compensated non-working days is only a thought. Although our lives as human beings are longer, the lives of corporate entities that support our livelihood seem to be shorter. With mergers, acquisitions, and bankruptcies, corporations are not the only ones shutting their doors. Entire sectors and industries are vanishing from databases. Tool and dye manufacturing companies for example are at the point of totally being relocated to China and other countries with a much cheaper labor. That sector is about to dissolve. And so does the concept of huge department stores, the likes of Sears and JC Penney wherein everything is under one roof yet in different rooms or different floors. Wal-Mart took over, a huge one stop shop box with only one humongous floor in a huge open space. Remember Service Merchandise and Montgomery Ward. They are just a few of the many who lived and died.
In the end, the only job security we could truly have is when we secure ourselves as the best source of talents only us can have. When we diversify or improve on our skills, when we give ourselves a second chance to open a new set of books, when we try to learn the manual of a new tool or technology, we also open ourselves to a new kind of resume, a new kind of work, a different perception of stability and permanence.
In the meantime, have compassion to those who are in search of a job. If this page has helped, try to share it with those who do not know. Take care. While you have the will, you will have the hope.