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What do Filipino workers want in the elections? Photo courtesy of EILER.ph.

Labor Day is fast approaching. Workers’ unions are in fact making sure that their voices are heard in the elections amid all the conflicting “change” platforms. Come to think of it, their agenda, the labor agenda seems to be their yardstick for measuring up candidates whether they are truly pro-change or they’re just mouthing “pagbabago” just to get votes.

In a press conference announcing a big rally on May 1, the trade union center Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) also bared its 10-point agenda which, upon closer inspection, encourages everyone to be critical of all the “very promising” politicians and to consider what’s really important to daily living:

1. Legislation of significant wage increase for workers
2. Promotion of workers’ rights; stop the criminalization of workers
3. Review of the Labor Code of the Philippines, reversal of laws promoting labor contractualization and flexible labor, and junking of the Assumption of Jurisdiction
4. Local job generation, reversal of labor export policies
5. Control in the prices of commodities, penalization of big companies that overprice goods and services
6. Increase in budget spending for social services
7. Support efforts to liberate country from foreign debt dependence
8. Support efforts to liberate local economy from dependence on foreign market and capital
9. Justice for all the victims of political repression, trade union and human rights violations
10. Trial and prosecution of the Arroyo administration for its crimes against the people