Abstract:
Workers are faced with a multitude of problems, the
most common of which are: low wages and benefits, poor
working conditions, limited job choices, limited access to
basic services and problems in organizing and asserting
their trade union and human rights.
The 1987 Constitution has a pronounced bias in support
of the welfare and rights of Filipino labor. It has
declared labor as the country’s “primary social economic
force” but unfortunately, many of the labor rights mandated
by the Constitution remain either paper rights or are
enjoyed only by a very small number of workers.
Workers are the leading victims of false agro-industrial
policies foisted by past and present
administrations. Such policies have failed to generate the
jobs needed by all and the earnings sufficient for worker
families to live decently. Worse, they have to bear the
brunt of certain repressive labor policies to meet the
requirements of the IMF-World Bank group for a_ cheap,
docile and productive labor. This study presents the general situation of Filipino
workers and the legislative changes made to the Philippine
labor policies from the period after the EDSA Uprising
(1987) up to the year 1998 and as such creating a set of
repressive labor rules in order to suit globalization
policies.
