The covid pandemic has exposed all the ills
and contradictions of capitalism. The state has intervened massively in society
to contain the infection and maintain the social fabric. Still the workers and
the poor are disproportionately bearing the burden of the pandemic.
The lockdown has put millions
temporarily jobless on a no work, no pay policy. The poor cannot earn a living
as everyone is forced to stay at home. Assistance to the poor was not enough for
everyone so political patronage and wanton discrimination reigned supreme. The
health system is overwhelmed by the scale of the contagion since public health
provision has suffered from budget cuts while private hospitals are out of
reach of the masses.
Women are key frontliners as they
comprise the overwhelming number in the care economy in general and the health
sector in particular. And among working class families, women face an even
heavier task just because of their gender. Even during the lockdown, the toil
of domestic chores falls on the shoulders of women while a big part of the responsibility
of provisioning for the family’s daily bread is also theirs. Violence against
women and abuse of girls and children will increase with male breadwinners
temporarily out of work and the family stressed to the limit due to financial
hardship. Women will be forced into prostitution in the extreme of cases just
to stave off hunger.
Finally, the government has exploited
the pandemic to further restrict civil liberties and suppress democratic rights.
An iron fist policy has dominated over a public health response. Thus the
number of people arrested for violating the lockdown has far exceeded the
number of people tested for covid. The situation in the Philippines is no
different from other countries where authoritarianism is gaining ground.
A global recession, if not a depression,
is looming. As in all episodes of capitalist crisis, the working class will be
hard hit as the capitalist class will pass on the sacrifices to the poor.
The plight of the working class is
deteriorating as capitalism struggles to recover from the covid pandemic and
the economic crisis. But the present conjuncture is also an opening to
reimagine a radical restructuring of society where the needs of people not
profit come first.
Workers hold no nostalgia for the old normal
of neoliberal capitalism characterized by insecure work, cheap wages, permanent
joblessness, privatized services and lack of protection. Instead the working
class must spearhead the framing of the new normal as a system where workers
are valued for their wealth-creating labor and the people enjoy by right the
things necessary for a decent life—full employment, a living wage, universal
health care, quality education, social protection and a clean environment, a voice
in their workplaces and society as a whole, among others.
A proper response to the covid pandemic should put the needs of
the workers and poor first. The following
four demands are just the most immediate but are necessary to transition to a
new normal of workers first.
1.
Sufficient Aid for All
An income and employment guarantee for
all. All jobless workers, formal and informal, should receive a wage subsidy at
the prevailing minimum wage or P10,000, whichever is higher.
Aid delivery must be universal not
targeted and discriminatory. This will solve the slow, confusing and
bureaucratic targeted system of delivering government assistance to formal and
informal workers. Support must be raised from the present level of P5,000.
2.
Aid beyond the period of the lockdown
Aid should not stop when the lockdown
is lifted, especially since not everyone will be able to return to work
immediately. Assistance should be extended to at least six months. This
extended support must form part of the proposed stimulus package for the
purpose of recovery from the crisis.
The stimulus must also provide a
robust emergency employment program for workers who will become permanently
unemployed due to the impact of covid and for returning migrant workers who
will be displaced in their host countries. Likewise, the stimulus aid for
businesses must be tied to compliance to labor rights and standards, and to
grant of a voice for workers in their workplaces.
3.
Safety for workers returning to work
Workers returning to
their jobs are key to restarting the economy. But the government and
capitalists are more concerned more with the return on investments and less on
the safety of workers. Unfortunately, even workers are tempted to risk their
health and safety rather than face hunger due to joblessness.
Health and safety in
the workplace and in transit must be ensured before workers are asked back to
work. Mass testing must be done through the reliable Reverse Transcription-Polymerase
Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) not the erratic Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) preferred
by the government and capitalists. Personal protective equipment or PPE must be
given free to workers. They must be remunerated with additional hazard pay. Full
healthcare coverage for workers who will be hospitalized due to covid. Workers
must have the right to refuse to work without penalty if health and safety is
not guaranteed.
4. Humane not
militarized response
Enforcement of the
lockdown has been characterized by violence by state authorities, arrests of
the poor and suppression of protests by the hungry. Duterte has repeatedly
threatened to impose martial law even if the situation falls outside of the
purview of the law.
The issue is framed as
lack of individual discipline when in fact insufficient aid and repressive
rules force the masses to desperately break the law. The order for people to
stay at home will be problematic since people are going hungry for lack of
assistance and they are treated as beneficiaries of philanthropy instead of
claim holders of the right to aid in a time of crisis.
Partido Manggagawa
May 1, 2020
