The condition of women workers
AB is publishing a situationer on women workers as part of a series on the condition of women in various sectors.
The intensified poverty suffered by the Filipino people is acutely felt by women workers. They are victims of an exploitative and oppressive social system and reactionary government policies. They are denied their rights and the most basic services to advance their welfare.
Compared to male workers, a considerably bigger number of women workers are unemployed. Those who do find work receive even less than the slave-wages or salaries that their class brothers receive.
Moreover, the maddening responsibility of trying to get by with the family's earnings and see to its daily welfare and well-being rests upon their shoulders.
Most of them are invisible in official statistics
The number of Filipinos eligible to work (15 years old and up) increased by 1.45 million last year. But according to government statistics, a mere 624,000 (43%) had the opportunity to participate in production and thus become officially counted as part of the labor force.
Half, or 739,000 of those eligible to work are women. But from this number, only 94,000 (or 12.7%) actually participate in production and are officially counted as part of the labor force. The 645,000 (87.3%) are set aside as "reserve labor forces" and thus do not appear in the official statistics of employment and unemployment. The bulk of this number are housewives and are denied the opportunity to participate in social processes.
Widespread unemployment
In a society with a dire shortage of jobs, there are far too few women who are employed. For every ten workers, only four are women. For every ten women workers, four work part-time as a result of capitalists' policy to cut costs and reduce work-hours. For every three contractual workers, one is a woman.
Likewise, for every ten jobless workers, four are women. From 2000 to 2002, more and more women workers have been losing their jobs. Many of their workplaces have shut down due to the intensified economic crisis.
This is starkly illustrated by the folding up of many businesses involved in garments production, where half of the labor force are women.
From 2002 to 2003, up to 409,000 women lost their jobs, most of them from the agricultural sector. A large number of those laid off were salesladies and others from businesses involved in wholesale and retail trading (such as supermarkets).
One indicator of the absence of regular jobs is the rising number of women (195,000 within one year) who end up becoming domestic helpers or make do with being employed in small stores owned by others.
The bulk of the population of women (over 12.4 million or 48% of the entire population eligible to work) is in the countryside. But almost half of this number are not regarded as part of the labor force. Among the women with jobs, 36% of those who receive wages and salaries work as domestic helpers or peddlers in marketplaces or in small stores in the countryside.
Meanwhile, 28% are categorized as "unpaid family labor," while 36% are "own account workers".
These categories are merely means by which the reactionary government conceals the dearth of jobs or adequate employment in the cities and the countryside.
In the face of all this, more and more women are going abroad to seek gainful employment or to earn adequate income. Hundreds of thousands of women seek jobs in other countries as DH (domestic helpers) and caregivers.
According to a study conducted by a women's organization, caregiver training centers receive 20 applicants a day, 95% of them women. Violence against women and children:
*One woman or child is raped every one hour and sixteen minutes.
*One woman or child is molested every four hours.
*One woman is beaten up every one hour and 24 minutes.
*One child is beaten up every three hours. |
Extremely low wages
If they are able to land jobs, women workers receive wages that are even lower than that of their male counterparts. A woman worker receives only 82 centavos for every peso that a male worker receives. No wage increases have been granted for the past several years despite the spiralling prices of goods and basic services.
Most of them receive wages much lower than the minimum daily wage of P250. This is far less than what a family of six needs to live decently.
On many occasions, these families simply reduce their food intake as a means of coping with the daily grind. They need to work themselves almost to the point of death just to be able to meet their families' food, health, housing and education needs.
The continued hike in charges for public utility services is a heavy added burden. In the past year alone, electricity charges increased by 76% while charges for water went up by 50-65%. The prices of petroleum products, including the price of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), also rose 12-16%.
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