EDITORIAL - Something has to change

With another Labor Day passing comes the usual platitudes from the government for our laborers. This time the president ordered the different Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Boards to review wage hike petitions.

We don’t know exactly what will come out of this yet, or even if anything will. The wage boards are known to take the side of management most of the time when it comes to such petitions.

But even such efforts may come off as too little too late for many in our workforce or those about to enter it; the ambition of many people, especially the younger ones just leaving school or vocational courses, isn’t really to find gainful employment here but in foreign shores.

And we can’t really blame them for thinking that way. Considering how much the salary here is compared to the salary abroad, that alone is good reason for many. That goes without saying that working abroad brings with it travel, adventure, and even the possibility that you can eventually take your family with you and settle them there.

The government seems to still be fixated on sending our workers out instead of finding ways to make them stay. Also as pointed out by a columnist in this newspaper, even our antiquated Labor Code puts a lot of unnecessary emphasis on the recruitment for overseas jobs.

But while working abroad has its obvious benefits it also has disadvantages, often long-term effects. The absence of one parent will always have an impact on a family; the continuous exodus of a country’s workers will not bode well for that country in the long run, most especially if the “best and brightest” pull up their stakes to go somewhere else feeling unappreciated or thinking they can find better opportunities elsewhere.

Something has to change. As long as the focus of the government, the schools, the communities, and individuals families is to encourage people to work abroad, those who are working here may never get what is due them.