MANILA
A recent fire in a factory in Valenzuela City in Metro Manila killed more than 70 people. Tragedies like that will continue to blight the nation as long as government monitoring of work conditions in our factories remains lax.
The bigger tragedy is that these are avoidable and therefore need not happen. But they do. And with frightening frequency.
The summer heat exacerbates the conditions that make it easy for intense fires to flare up, swallowing whole buildings in a matter of minutes.
And, when the fire is already raging and uncontrollable, unsafe building structures make escape impossible and multiple deaths occur.
It’s something that, with appropriate safeguards, need not happen.
Who are the culprits?
Factories and plants that employ large numbers of workers are death traps if they’re not built up to safety standards. Fire escapes are a must. Smoke alarms and water sprinklers should be mandatory to first, alert people to an impending fire to enable them to escape. And two, to have mechanisms to dowse the fire as it starts and before it can grow into a major conflagration.
Regular fire drills and escape plans should also be part of the routine in factories.
These are basic measures that should be standard requirements for all buildings, but especially for structures that contain large numbers of people.
Sweatshop-like conditions — like cramped surroundings, lack of proper ventilation, subhuman working conditions, long work hours — should be outlawed. Government monitoring and enforcing authorities should conduct regular inspections (and shouldn’t be susceptible to being bribed by owners of dilapidated and unsafe facilities).
In the aftermath of the Valenzuela fire, fire prevention and police authorities went on an inspection spree but it’s for show and reactive for public consumption (and for President Benigno Aquino III?). Such procedures should be proactive and genuine and not merely going-through-the-motions exercises.
The government should seriously look into the longtime and common practice of short-term (six months) contractual hiring of workers that deny them medical, vacation and other standard benefits. I’m surprised that the Department of Labor and Employment allows this unfair and exploitative practice. Instead of the DOLE secretary’s knee-jerk squeals of “immoral,” she should look hard into exploitative practices of many employers and do something about them.
One employee at the Valenzuela slippers factory told a reporter that he makes P200 a day (less than $5). How in heaven’s name can a person live on less than $5 a day? Minimum wage laws should be obeyed without exception.
Conditions like these are what militant labor groups protest, and with reason. We should all add our voices to the clamor for decent working conditions. The economy cannot thrive on the backs of exploited workers.
Major Philippine companies boast of their handsome annual incomes. Instead of trumpeting their profits, they should voluntarily cut their earnings and give their workers increased wages and benefits instead. Blue-collar workers shouldn’t be treated as subhuman beings.
President Aquino should use his moral suasion to persuade business to voluntarily pare down their profits and share them with their workers. They should not profit too handsomely while their workers sacrifice and live miserably. Slavery has long been outlawed by civilized society.
Mr. Aquino needs to leave a positive legacy. Making working conditions universally safe and wages decent enough to live on would add to his claim to a respectable place in history.
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