acynicmeetshope: “We need flexible labor laws” - Peter Wallace(recommends a radical over
acynicmeetshope: “We need flexible labor laws” - Peter Wallace(recommends a radical overhaul of labour laws and deregulation of the minimum wage — while praising Malala Yousafzai at the same time:http://opinion.inquirer.net/63485/we-need-flexible-labor-laws)A few comments:1.) Lowering living standards or workers’ wages in the name of job creation is akin to burning down one’s house to claim insurance for it. It’s akin to forcing people dying of thirst to share a tiny glass of water when there’s a river of fresh, clean water right behind them: a river redirected to feed some greedy businessman’s garden sprinklers and mansion fountains.2.) A lack of job-creating investments is not due to too stringent labour laws or minimum wage requirements too high for business owners to cope with. At any rate, labour laws are rarely, if ever, properly implemented on the ground.Local entrepreneurs have been unwilling or unable to compete in an environment where nearly all markets have been monopolized by a few transnational corporations or local Big Business. Government “regulations” have always been in favour of the latter’s interests, at the expense of workers and small and medium enterprises (SMEs).Increasingly everything we buy in the supermarket these days is made by Unilever, grown by Dole, or delivered by San Miguel.This is not surprising. It is in the nature of a capitalist economy. 3.) Deregulating the economy, slashing wages, promoting labour contractualisation, and privatising public industries to “attract” foreign investments: all have come at the expense of developing a local market and raising living standards across the board (which is also a solution to corruption and patronage politics). We’ve been trying these same formulas since the 1970s, and have been following IMF/World Bank/ADB economic recommendations down to the letter. Unemployment, underemployment, hunger and poverty rates are as bad as they have ever been.4.) Amid a global economic crisis, depending on foreign investments for job creation is a pipe dream. Transnational corporations are just as likely to pack up and leave for other countries with even lower wages or looser social or environmental regulations when the conditions are right or prove more profitable — in a gory race to the bottom. The World Bank/IMF’s idea of a “suitable investment climate” is a sweatshop in Bangladesh with virtually no safety standards, where young women and children are paid mere cents for a 12-hour work day.5.) Foreign investments have in reality come in the form of “hot flows” of capital to the stock market, which have left the economy in a chronic state of instability. All this shows up in GDP growth figures (i.e. jobless growth) which fail to reflect reality on the ground. Millions are still unemployed and nearly half of the population still live on less than two dollars a day. With a dire lack of industrial development and an economy dependent on the service or extractive (logging, large-scale mining) sector, OFW remittances continue to prop up the country’s economy.Such a strategy is the exact opposite of what South Korea, Taiwan, Japan - and today, a handful of Latin American countries - have pursued to develop their own economies. 6.) Public sector bureaucrats regularly pay themselves millions of pesos in bonuses every year. (see: SSS, Philhealth, Department of Agriculture, Malampaya funds). Congressmen and senators regularly pay themselves millions of pesos in Christmas bonuses (up to Php 30 million each last December, courtesy of Enrile). CEOs, bankers and company shareholders regularly pay themselves billions of pesos a year even when their companies are in a slump, requiring taxpayers to bail them out. The government (i.e. taxpayers) has taken on the burden of paying millions of dollars in private sector debts since the days of Cory - much of it is odious, accumulated by Marcos cronies like Danding Cojuangco and Lucio Tan - to please foreign creditors. Public companies and services like healthcare and education have since been privatised to “open up new markets” for the private sector. They are still being privatised and are practically being given away to businessmen closely linked to Malacanang or Congress - sold for a song in the name of “market efficiency”. Local and foreign corporations alike continue to lobby politicians - by funding their campaigns, for instance - to ensure themselves lucrative business contracts, capture markets, and eliminate competition.And let’s not forget Napoles’ NGOs.The bottom-line: there is more than enough money to go around.7.) Malala Yousafzai is a socialist, a feminist and a labour rights campaigner, and unlikely ever to take Mr. Wallace’s recommendations seriously. -- source link