‘Labor rights are human rights’

By Dolly Yasa

BACOLOD City – Labor leader Wennie Sancho said Friday that to commemorate the 73rd anniversary of International Human Rights Day, the General Alliance of Workers Association (GAWA) invokes the provision in the 1987 Constitution on Social Justice and Human Rights that the end of social justice is to ensure the dignity, welfare and security of the workers.

This Constitutional provision are to be applied not to diminish the rights of the workers but to insure adequate protection of their rights and well-being, Sancho said.

But Sancho said “unfortunately, the twin problem of unemployment and underemployment is on the rise, wages and income of the workers are down but the prices of basic goods and services are going up while the purchasing power of the workers deteriorates and they could hardly make both ends meet.”

He said majority of the workers today are suffering from poverty, hardship, lack of

economic opportunity amidst the deterioration in their standard of living.

Sancho also said that respect for human rights of the workers means that labor laws must be humanized to meet the workers’ needs and aspirations, instead of being mechanistic rules applied with cold aloofness.

It is high time that quasi-judicial agencies should breathe life into the inert pages of the Constitution and insulate the wrongdoings inflicted upon the poor, exploited and oppressed workers, Sancho added.

“This will give meaning and substance to our struggle to respect human rights.”

Sancho further said that human rights are set of values that must be lived, captured and

transmitted as a noble legacy for all workers.

These rights are immutable, inflexible, and unyielding to any form of pressure otherwise our adherence to freedom and democracy would be a sheer mockery, he stressed.

If we cherish the workers, as we should, we must resolve to lighten the weight of centuries of exploitation and disdain that bends his back but does not bow his head, Sancho said.

“Let us treat the workers with dignity and respect, that is the essence of human rights.”