Add labor rights in curriculum, DepEd urged

BAGUIO CITY – The Department of Education should include discussions on labor rights in the curriculum of high schools in the country to boost productivity in the workforce, a University of the Philippines professor said here on Friday.

Professor Cesario Azucena, of the UP School of Labor and Industrial Relations, said 70 percent of the country’s 57 million workers were composed of college undergraduates and high school dropouts who are unaware of their rights as employees.

“What kind of labor force are you going to have when 70 percent of [this workforce] is ignorant [of their rights]?” he asked.

He said a survey that UP Solair conducted in 2004 showed that the workers’ lack of knowledge of the country’s labor laws and their rights stemmed from poor education.

Azucena, who spoke in a lecture series organized by the Department of Labor and Employment at the University of Baguio here, said if the labor force would continue to accept high school graduates, the DepEd should include discussions on basic labor laws in select subjects.

“When we speak of the labor rights, we do not only speak of the rights of workers but we also speak of the rights of the capitalists or job providers,” he said.

He said little knowledge of these rights would make the worker the weaker party in the labor sector, when a worker is faced with no more choice but to keep a job. –Desiree Caluza, Inquirer Northern Luzon