Philippine

[_carmi]

there is this guy from the Philippine that came to my humanities class tuesday to talk about his country and how are things over there.

i thought it was very interesting and i thought i'd share.

In the Philippine Economic Zone:
- 200 something companies all owned by foreign nationals
- 80% of workers = females
- 70% of workers are from the rural population
- workers earn 72 pesos daily ($6/day)
- for them living decently = eating 3 times a day
- they earn 77% less than the minimum wage (284 pesos)
- workers are put on temporary/contractual status to companies can pay them less
- new workers are for the 3 months without contract so they can be kicked out at anytime
- contracts of workers are often terminated after 3-5 months
- 3-5 months after termination of contracts, the companies offer new contracts
- workers have to achieve the daily quota or they are reprimanded
- if the daily quota is achieved, the companies increase it
- law says workers must work 8hrs/day and have 1 day of rest
- workers actually work 10hrs/day, it can reach 16hrs/day during shipment period with 1-2hrs break and they work 7/7days
- there are no benefits given to workers
- unsafe work environment
- no union no strike policy

there was also this strike of unions at Chong Won Fashion Inc (supplies stuff to Walmart) and Phils Jeon Garments Inc that started on Sept 26, 2006.
- violent and brutal strike
- the companies' management refused to give the workers what they wanted
- PEZA police and Jantro Security guards put up blocking check points, food blockage
- Philippine Economic Zone, Department of Labor and Emplyment, and the Goverment all stood on the companies' side
- for 11 months, 10-12 strikers from each companies striked at the picket lines
- June 10-11, 2007 - strikes' lives were threatened and the picket line was totally dismantled
- Aug 6 ,2007 - 2 strikers from Phils Jeon Garments Inc got kidnapped. same with Chong Won Fashion Inc workers
- armed unidentified men kidnapped those workers
- one question arise: how can these unidentified armed men enter the tightly guarded zone?
- a lot of workers are traumatized, one of them is currently seeking psychiatric treatment
- the struggle has now been placed in the hands of legal and court cases and campiagns.

 

[masta247]

So? It's just their reality. There are countries where people have much worse standards. Philipines = quite average country on world's ladder if it comes to economy, they grow quite fast tho. If I'd say that in most world's countries people have worse standards I'd probably be right. There's just few grown countries where people have great possibilities and USA/Canada are nearly on top.

 

[Preach]

arguably, us few grown countries with benefits sort of chop off our own legs in the process of having things easy.

if the world economy crashes, how will that affect the phillipines, really? now what about the western countries then lol? we're all gonna end up comitting suicide.

 

[_carmi]

now i dont even know why i even psoted this. oh yeah right i thought it was interesting this morning when i was doing an essay on it. now its boooring *goes read perez hilton*

 

[Rahim]

and i thought i had it bad..hmm..

 

[Rukas]

Firstly carmi, the country is called The Philippines, or the Republic of the Philippines.

Anyway, it's a developing country but it is one of the fastest developing economys (and populations) in Asia at the moment. There was a 5.6% growth last year and they're hoping to hit 7% this year, 8% in 2008, and 9% in 2009.

if the world economy crashes, how will that affect the phillipines, really? now what about the western countries then lol? we're all gonna end up comitting suicide.

If the world or Asian economy crashes it wil affect the Philipines a lot actually, and has done so in the past.

After the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 the Philippines peso fell from 26 pesos to a US dollar to 40 pesos to a dollar. That is a huge crash.

 

[dillaxx]

why are all the women working? are gender roles reversed there?? do the men get beat and take care of the kids?

 

[Preach]

If the world or Asian economy crashes it wil affect the Philipines a lot actually, and has done so in the past.

After the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997 the Philippines peso fell from 26 pesos to a US dollar to 40 pesos to a dollar. That is a huge crash.

from every thinkable aspect that involves social constructs and politics, well, yeah.

what i meant though is that if the world economy building goes to hell (basically, if visa went bankrupt or some other thing happened that rendered money not usable, and killed everything that has anything to do with currency rates and so forth), the people in the philipines are gonna go from living under harsh working conditions to living under.. their very own working conditions. if anything, the fall of the western society would probably benefit some countries to an extent. yes, it means they wouldn't get the newest consoles and music, but distribution of the type of wealth that is measured in properties, how much food you have stored, how much cattle you own, etc etc etc would be non-existant. meaning you find a nice place, you build a house there, you fight to protect it, but it's yours and no stupid bank is gonna come and take it away because you didn't pay your bills.

whereas those of us who live in the modern western societies and are oh so dependent on technological inventions and social constructs for our lives to have meaning, and for us to feel satisfaction, would probably suffer major psychological problems when we couldn't continue to live in wealth. the very reason that i'm rich is that the majority of the world's population aren't. if all resources were shared, you wouldn't have countries like norway in which like 90% of the population live pretty decently (or whatever, the majority anyway). if i lost all my assets and my parents lost theirs, our only real valuables would be our car and our house. what about our careers that would come to an ultimate halt as there was no taxations, no finance, etc etc? what about all the insurance companies that would go bankrupt? we have so many elements in our simple lives that we are so used to that we take them for granted, that if the world economy crashed completely we would be royally fucked. whereas people in third world countries, and to a lesser extent people who live in countries with lower-than-average standards wouldn't feel the blow as much as us.

it's like someone moving from sudan to burundi.

 

[S O F I]

^Why do you see yourself as such a weak person? You're not rich by most standards, yet you feel you'd suffer "psychological problems" from losing wealth.

 

[_carmi]

Firstly carmi, the country is called The Philippines, or the Republic of the Philippines.

Anyway, it's a developing country but it is one of the fastest developing economys (and populations) in Asia at the moment. There was a 5.6% growth last year and they're hoping to hit 7% this year, 8% in 2008, and 9% in 2009.

yeah i fucked up the name. anyways yeah their economy is developing. its developing on exploitation.

 

[Rukas]

^ Explotation? Why because women work or wages are low based on wealthy western countries? It's their econommy and their culture. They can't afford to pay workers what you get paid.

 

[S O F I]

^Most companies that the women work for are MNCs who have the resources to pay these women higher wages. They don't choose to because, quite frankly, they don't have to. But, it's not higher wages, it's really the working conditions that these women work under that's the problem.

 

[ill-matic]

^Most companies that the women work for are MNCs who have the resources to pay these women higher wages. They don't choose to because, quite frankly, they don't have to. But, it's not higher wages, it's really the working conditions that these women work under that's the problem.

thats right.

it is exploitation, because many Trans National Corporations specifically set up factories in countries such as the Philippines because it is much more cost effective than having a factory within a country like the U.S or Australia. And this is precisely because in Western countries there exist tribunals, and government bodies which try to establish a minimum set of working conditions which must be adhered to by the employer. In countries such as the Philippines they don't have a Unionised workplace - and they lack resources to effectively implement a minimum standard of conditions. There's no minimum wage, Unionism is virtually non existent, and consequently workers are in no position to push for higher wages and a higher standard of conditions. Because of this the TNCs establish themselves there and exploit the fuck out of the workers.

 

[Preach]

^Why do you see yourself as such a weak person? You're not rich by most standards, yet you feel you'd suffer "psychological problems" from losing wealth.

you douche. you're not following me. the contrast between the collapse of a very well-established system and the collapse of a system not so well-established is prominent, and the former would most likely, from a statistical point of view, have a harder time overcoming the transition than the latter, who already suffered from some of the things that people in the well-established system don't even have to worry about. like worker's rights.

do you now get what i meant? i wasn't talking about myself at all.

 

[dillaxx]

^^^ yeah i was trying to see what he was talking about when he said that... i couldnt see what he was so mad about.. but i decided not to say anything...

about the labor thing, ok, so these women work in sweatshops or factories under retarded conditions... why is it still 80-20?? what are the men doing?