Since most of the industrial, business and commercial activities are concentrated in the Greater Metro Manila Area, it is but natural that labor problems will constantly arise there. Labor had been agitating for more favorable sharing of profits, additional benefits and security of tenure. Capitalists sometimes agree but most hem and haw and reason out that business is not that good to allow them to accede to labor demands. Labor say that capital is negotiating in bad faith while capital say labor has been asking too much. Although this problem had been affecting urban labor, this had reached Bohol even years ago. Years ago a soft drink sales team enjoyed perks seldom received by other sales teams or any other group of employees. We cautioned them to adopt a simpler lifestyle since these perks might not last. We were told that they will be comfortable until they retire and even after retirement... experiencing and observing business trends abroad, we predicted that a change will come within five years at the most. True enough after two years, sales were transferred to a subsidiary agency. They were paid off and forced to retire. They were warned that if they objected, their previous sins or failures though minor will be brought about jeopardizing their favorable early retirement. They threw in the towel.
What that sales personnel thought that like jobs in the government covered by civil service laws, they are guaranteed security of tenure. Unfortunately the stability of the business atmosphere is determined by market forces. Once, because of strict patent laws, a commercial enterprise can have the monopoly of production. That is why IBM, UNIVAC, NCR. Boroughs and other giant electronic data processing manufacturing firms hogged the computer market. However, research was able to produce cheaper machines of different design but of the same though slower function. The big computer corporations either closed up or sold out. Needless to say, employees were dismissed. To free man from the repetitive processes in the factory, machine age was invented... however, the functions of those machines has to be monitored so it will perform as expected. So this control was automated. That means another set of machines acted as control. Automation age was born. Giving rise to robotics. When cybernetics imparted artificial intelligence to robots allowing them to exercise a certain degree of decision making, man had been farther freed from the factory and clerical table. Sadly consumer goods and other factory products are of better quality and cheaper when made by “compumation” than by manual labor. At present many factory workers, tellers and clerks had lost their jobs to “compumation”.
Years ago, we read that the provincial government was attempting reengineering. What came into our mind was reengineering of personnel staffing. We could have read the proposed project wrong but we had attempted that once in one of the premier cities. Taking advantage of the law of attrition, positions vacated by retired employees whose jobs were nonessential, that means they can be replaced by machines are not to be filled. .should there be additional personnel needed for the season say the first quarter of the year when numerous paper works is handled, contractual or job order employees are accepted. But only for the period. Government and business operations are two different functions. The first operates to furnish basic services. Funds are always available. Its existence is necessary. Anyone employed in the government cam stay until the age of retirement... The second operation exists for profit... Minimize expense, maximize income. It has to stay in the good side of the expense and income balance sheet. If that cannot be achieved, then the enterprise has no excuse for its existence. In such conditions, there is no such thing as security of tenure....
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