Pay, not nature of work, makes for a poor man’s job

I ONCE asked a student if there is any difference between being a teacher who has had 30 years of teaching experience and being a janitor for 30 years in the institution where I teach. Of course, the student argued that being a janitor does not exercise a lot of thought processes, whereas in the company of books and learned men, a person develops and intellectually grows. I replied in the opposite. I said there is no difference—both their children have finished college in the Ateneo. Both live the good life!

This is not the case today. Janitors are no longer employed by the school. They are employed by agencies which provide “services” to any private entity that hire them. The private entity has no obligation to them, not even when their children are sick.

The point of the above is that we look down on certain blue-collar jobs not really because of the nature of the job. Precisely, where a CEO has 6750 for an office address, the janitor has the “CR” for his universe. But upon close examination, it is not the nature of the job or the address that undermines the very dignity of our workers. It is their pay. You have a poor man’s job not because of the nature of your work. It is because the pay is poor.

Policymakers contend that if the salaries of millions of workers were improved, we will become less competitive. Well, we have always been less competitive for many decades now. But it is not because of the salaries of our workers, but because doing business in the country is very expensive and unattractive—bureaucratic red tape, high power rates, corruption, bad infrastructure, and vague policies.

What this means is that the pitiful construction and factory worker will have to suffer for the incompetence and bad judgment of those who are in government. Our politicians, who owe a thing or two to a rich benefactor, make decisions using the perspective of business owners, and not the eternal cry of our workers for just and decent wages.

About a million students graduate from college every year. They will look for jobs. Clearly, they do not have the entrepreneurial spirit of a Joey Concepcion or the innovative ideas of a Steve Jobs. But one thing is sure: They will form part of the status quo that perpetuates “the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer” incongruity.

—CHRISTOPHER RYAN MABOLOC,

president, Social Ethics Society (Mindanao),

[email protected]