In my meditation today, it came to my mind the problems faced by contractual employees.
A contractual employee is a person who has only 6 months employment period on his/her job before he/she will be terminated.
Before a contractual employee becomes one, he/she has to be at least a high school graduate to college undergraduate to college graduate.
The requirements before you can apply for a contractual job:
1. resume
2. id picture (1x1 or 2x2)
3. barangay clearance (cost around P25)
4. police clearance (cost around P100 plus)
5. NBI clearance (cost around (P100 plus or more)
6. medical clearance (if including chest x ray, urinalysis, stool exam, cbc- will cost more than P500- less than P1,000)
7. other supporting papers (at varied expenses to obtain)
After you have these, you apply for a contractual job.
Before you even got hired, you will spend at least P1,000 for your papers, transportation expense, and food.
Even if you applied, it is not sure if you will be accepted.
After being accepted, you will face the problems of:
1. uniform (usually you will be given money for it, or you will provide it yourself)
2. tax deduction (about 10% of your earnings will be deducted from you as tax)
3. other benefit deductions (like sss, pag-ibig, philhealth etc if it is them who will pay it, or you will do it yourself)
4. thinking where to apply after 6 months
5. getting another medical clearance.
After being accepted for 2 contractual jobs, you have to renew the various requirements stated above.
If you will see through it, before you even work, during work, and after you have work, you will face various problems just to earn a little.
The long term problems faced by the contractual employee are:
1. no security of tenure
2. no benefits/ lack of benefits
3. problems of seeking another job after 6 months
4. living deprived of many things due to high cost of living with little take home salary
There may be more problems they have, but these problems mentioned are but some of them.
What measures can possibly alleviate the situation of contractual employees:
1. If in the future, instead of having separate clearances for one employment, there would be one clearance enumerating the barangay, police and NBI clearance in one clearance.
This can be done if the various agencies of government would have a system of link up that could provide for one clearance for employees, so that it will save time, effort and money on the part of the contractual worker.
2. other livelihood opportunities will be made available for the contractual employee such as having one's own small business or venture
3. various necessities for the people will be lowered in costs such as housing, electricity and water, through efficient and effective means.
4. The contractual employee, in the future, must seek employment abroad, to have a chance of a better life than the life he/she has in this country.
These are various proposed solutions that can help in easing the burden and improving the life of some of the contractual workers in the future.
If there are other solutions that are efficient and effective, may God help the contractual employees find it and avail of it, so that they may not be forever contractual employees, but people with improved lives in the future.
I think that contractual employment cannot be a permanent way of work condition for people seeking improved lives.
For such kind of employment will not provide a better future for our workers who will have families to support.
It can help sustain a worker who has no family to support...
But if someone is helping his/her family survive, there will be occasions of sacrifices, self denial, and self-deprivation just to provide something for one's family and love ones.
I pray to God to help the contractual workers obtain a better future.
May God help the contractual workers have a better tomorrow.
DEDICATING THIS BLOG TO THE GOD OF GODS, LORD OF LORDS, WHO HAVE CREATED US.
