NTUC Blog

Labor-related questions never run out of style. I wish to answer some, if I may, this Sunday. Q. I am past 60, still agile and sharp. I have retired but my employer wants to hire me back as a consultant. I am still willing to work, although for lesser hours to have some retirement time.…

BEIJING – The owner of a Chinese gypsum mine drowned yesterday after jumping into a well in an apparent suicide during rescue efforts for 17 workers still trapped two days after the mine collapsed and killed one person, state media said.

Good day! I am writing in support to your stand for security of tenure, and to merely express my sentiments on the institution I’m currently employed at. I work as a Job Order employee in my organization. Somehow, I find the term “Job Order” way too discriminating. Upon reading my contract, workplace discrimination has already…

(UPDATE2, – 9:20 p.m.) MANILA – Former labor leader and member of an independent commission that probed the 1983 Ninoy Aquino assassination, Ernesto “Boy” F. Herrera, who as senator later authored the 1995 Migrant Workers’ Act, died Thursday at the age of 73.

After Election Day, will the country be able to reclaim territory from dynasties, or will the bleeding continue? Last week thousands of people trooped to the Comelec to file their certificates of candidacy (COC), many of them vying for seats in local offices where members of their families hold monopolies of power. After the dust…

We know our place in the world. We are the port of last resort, and have little to offer the Rohingya beyond a separate peace. Yet I write this with pride, in the hope that there will always be a cluster of islands southwest of the Pacific, where no ship in need is called unwanted.

A press release from the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) on the minimum wage last Monday brought me back to a vigorous debate among my economist friends in the Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEF). The debate was so heated that fraternity brothers were accusing each other of being less than academically adequate even…

Francis disturbs me because he is the Pope of the doable, and this makes him difficult to ignore. How can I share his quotes and not follow the Pope? MANILA, Philippines – Popes usually speak the big words.

China has driven global growth, which has averaged a paltry 3% a year since 2008. So the knock-on effects of a Chinese slowdown on the global economy would be significant. The OECD reckons a two-percentage-point decrease in the growth of Chinese domestic demand for two years would reduce world GDP by 0.3 percentage points a…

“Here’s the bottom line: Regardless of the size of a country’s economy, its current economic situation, or the time frame chosen, people lead better lives as the minimum wage increases.” “Although correlation does not prove causation, the evidence we have assembled strongly suggests that higher minimum wages do indeed work to the financial betterment of…

Now that the Federal Reserve has brought its program of quantitative easing to a successful conclusion, while the French and German governments have ended their shadow-boxing over European budget “rules,” macroeconomic policy all over the world is entering a period of unusual stability and predictability. Rightly or wrongly, the main advanced economies have reached a…

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has rejected a proposal to allow small and medium enterprises nationwide to pay workers less than the prescribed minimum wage rates.

The UN’s trade body has joined a chorus of criticism of globalisation, warning that developing countries reap little value from taking part in global supply chains and that the costs of joining free-trade agreements may outweigh the gains.

Big mistakes in nation-building arise out of unwise decisions. Small mistakes that serially get repeated are big mistakes. I have often dealt with such mistakes in my discussions of policy reforms. Today I will be blunt and talk of them as bad decisions. They cost our nation a great deal of distress and pain. They…

Indonesia’s constitutional court has cleared the way for the country’s newly elected president to take office. Foreign and local media accounts of who Joko Widodo is will make many of us president-envy. I am writing about him today because I think we ought to know how the new leader of a regional competitor works.

THANK GMA: Talking of DAP as a stimulus for development, there are many analyses saying that the country’s remarkable growth is not so much the fruits of Aquino’s governance as a result of the adroit economic management by the previous Arroyo administration.

Famous American comedienne Lily Tomlin says: “Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It’s the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them.”

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The country is being heralded as the new Asian success story, but only an elite few reap the rewards. In a neighborhood of so-called “Asian tigers,” the Philippines has quietly emerged as the region’s newest economic darling. At 6.6 percent, the Filipino economy’s current GDP growth rate is the second highest in Asia, behind only…

HANOI — Anti-China demonstrators set more than a dozen factories on fire in Vietnam, state media said yesterday, in an escalating backlash against Beijing’s deployment of an oil rig in contested waters.

Imagine that you’ve been working in your job for a while. You enjoy your work, know how to do it well, and take pride in the results you produce. And then one day things change. Perhaps a new boss is hired from the outside, who doesn’t talk to you or your colleagues in sufficient depth…

AN oligarchy is defined as a form of government in which economic and political power lies in the hands of the few. Countries with this kind of government are often controlled by a few prominent families who pass on their influence from one generation to the next. Inheritance is not a necessary condition for an…

Why the rich now have less leisure than the poor FOR most of human history rich people had the most leisure. In “Downton Abbey”, a drama about the British upper classes of the early 20th century, one aloof aristocrat has never heard of the term “weekend”: for her, every day is filled with leisure. On…

MANILA, Philippines – Two students from the University of the Philippines who looked into the apparent conflict of interest in the alliance between Akbayan party-list and the Liberal Party bagged the top award in the recently held Chit Estella Journalism Research Awards.

There is an old cartoon I often show to the managers I work with. It portrays a smiling executive team around a long table. The chairman is asking, “All in favor?” Everyone’s hand is up. Meanwhile, the cloud hovering above each head contains a dissonant view: “You’ve got to be kidding;” “Heaven forbid;” “Perish the…

Full article here http://technology.inquirer.net/34439/sc-explains-why-only-authors-may-be-prosecuted-for-online-libel#ixzz2uDYxYiZK

Why only now? Today, the mobilization phase of the NLEX-SLEX Inter-Connector project begins in the heart of Metro Manila between Makati and the City of Manila. After 45 days or so, the actual construction work will begin in earnest. Motorists in Metro Manila have been told to brace themselves for what promises to be 2…

RECENT discussion over the labour-supply effects of Obamacare has touched off a debate over the usefulness of the dignity of work as a social value. Leading Republicans argue that policies that discourage work and therefore signal that work is not important should be strongly resisted. Paul Krugman insists that it is impossible to maintain the…

I was invited recently by Sam Chittick of the Australian Embassy to speak to a group of expats and locals, all of whom are engaged in providing assistance to this country. The invitation immediately evoked memories of Australia. I visited Melbourne/Sydney for the first time in the early Sixties and met Donald Horne, who authored…

Household appliance maker Fagor has recently entered bankruptcy, but its workers are not ready to give up their jobs. FORTUNE — In the town of Basauri, amid the rolling hills of Spain’s Basque Country, some 140 workers at the Edesa appliance factory are taking four-hour shifts as they stage a lock-in. Their parent company, the…