Decent wages that can support a man and his family with dignity had always been elusive to the working man. With upsurge in the prices of basic commodities, the poor worker could barely make earnings at par with spending. Even the most industrious laborer could hardly earn enough for a decent living. Most workers are always at the mercy of employers who are adamant to raise wages to just levels. The standard excuse of just wages being a prescription to business losses and eventual closure had been proven fallacious. The truth had always been that capital grows too well at the expense of labor. The cruel reality is patent in the fact that over a period, employers amass wealth while the poor workers wallow in debts.
We have been made to believe that we are lazy according to the indoctrination by our foreign colonizers. That tag was unfairly made as our forebears resisted the hard labor that they were made to undertake at the cruel hands of our colonizers. Standing for their right to refuse obedience to the slave treatment of foreign masters, they got to be branded as lazy and were made to believe they are so. But such is far from the reality because by and large, we are a people who are industrious and diligent. Such fact is well attested by our race being the choice of foreign employers abroad. We had been known for our industrious and highly competent overseas workers. That too is true to our workers in the domestic field.
But is seems that our industry is not enough to sustain us for a decent living. Our workers abroad are best proof to the gross inequities that we are in. One who works abroad is fairly compensated to earn enough for the family while a similar worker with equal skills, knowledge and performance could hardly earn enough under our domestic setup. The disparity is so glaring that many of our competent workers prefer to find jobs offshore than fight it out under the iniquitous working conditions here.
Going abroad had been the trend for our workers as government promotes a labor-export policy. We train skilled workers to meet foreign demands. The best and the brightest of our workers are risking lives to find luck abroad out of desperation that none of such opportunities could be found here. We have in fact shifted to skills training for industries that are not in the country but on foreign soils. The resultant effect had been the unwitting depletion of our working hands that produce the domestic goods for our domestic needs.
Our exporting of workers had certainly benefited other countries. The skilled workers that we train at government’s expense are being utilized to help in the production of foreign lands. Those foreign countries that have the resources are enjoying high production with the able help of our workers. Products from foreign lands are then imported for our domestic consumption. Such is the undesirable result of our flawed policy direction vis-à-vis our labor force being exported than utilized to augment our domestic and national production.
All these are caused by the unfair wages that puts our workers in bondage of their toil. They remain helpless and unwilling victims of the social inequities that deprive them of decent income for a decent living. We mark this day with much misgivings as we suffer from labor pains brought about by an unjust social order to the disadvantage of the labor force.
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