The Drama of Labor Standards

By: Atty. Gabriel Cosh

The plot is pretty much the same, a family dragged into poverty, five children all in their young, learning years, a wife who has no means of livelihood, and a husband who has been a victim of an injury, and is ultimately incapacitated to comply with the demands of his work because of his disability. This picture is indeed quite alarming, almost filthy in a sense, but the truth and fact of it is that, this is reality, and much as we want to avoid it, it is inevitable.

As if matters can no longer be as degrading as they seem, the husband, who is the sole breadwinner of the family, was terminated from work because of his disability. He is now viewed as a liability in the production process; hence, his employer has no choice but to remove him. Now if you think it could no longer get worse, wait until you see what was the outcome of his claim for Social Security Disability Benefits, it is an utter pathetic state.

Long have our labor laws viewed labor as a social economic force, a vital clog in the production process that without it, our industrial system would have met its eventual downfall. Much as we give grave importance to labor, as manifested in our social legislations and labor standards laws, the same is not reflected in reality. The truth and fact of it is that notwithstanding the protection afforded by our labor standards laws, still the labor sector is continuously under the line of poverty, striving so hard to find a way to better their current situation.

The proverbial paradigm, which has been adopted since time immemorial and is still prevalent even in our present time, is that the rich becomes richer, and sadly, the poor becomes poorer. In this capitalist society particularly, we cannot dispute the fact that those who have the means of production necessary have the monopoly of wealth, and those who are mere puppets in the production process are deliberate and desperately kept in their situation.

And so the story goes on, still undetermined if it will have a happy ending, or one that would eventually lead to the destruction of the family. Yet, immaterial of whatever the outcome might be, still these stories would continue to linger, continue to plague the basic foundations of our society. Until and unless a viable solution may be taken the drama remains.


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