Sunday, February 22, 2009

Sad Days (part 1): Lawful Demise

I have pretty much hit rock-bottom the last couple of months starting when I was fired from work.

Actually, it wasn’t just me whose employment was terminated: it was everyone else’s. The Japanese owners of the factory where I work decided that it wasn’t worth saving the Philippine manufacturing plant considering the downturn in the US economy---our main customer---whose consumer demand constitutes about 80% of our monthly exports.

The truth is, it’s not really me I’m worried about. I’m fairly young, sharp, and have re-tooled my skills by going back to school while working full time. There’s a considerable chance I can find employment elsewhere. I’m more worried about my co-workers. Many of them are too old to be considered for gainful employment and most have not honed any marketable skills aside from the factory work they have mastered through the years. As I listened to the spontaneous wails and cries of disbelief as the announcement was being made, I came to realize something which I may have known for years but nevertheless have taken for granted: these people meant more than mere co-workers to me.

They were my family.

Maybe that was the reason why I refused to leave the company (with its pittance pay which I get every week that I have derisively referred to as my “allowance”) even if other employment opportunities abound---like those ubiquitous call centers.

“Anak (son), what will I do,” asks a middle-aged woman. She calls me anak because I happen to be a name-sake of her son. “Don’t you worry, ‘Nay (mom), everything will turn out for the better,” I assured her, not really knowing what I mean. Another woman sidles up to me, tears welling in her eyes and says: “Arnel, both me and my husband work here. What will happen to our children?” Her voice broke and I could not do anything but hug her.

She was, after all, my mother, too.

I may be an orphan but under the roof of my own little factory I have found many mothers and fathers. It took a single day for the company to spring the unwelcome surprise. To bid us all---mothers, fathers, sons, daughters---goodbye and good riddance. The vice-president says they commissioned a third party to compute the severance pay and we could get them on that same day. A battery of lawyers, accountants and Department of Labor representatives suddenly swooped down from nowhere to bear witness to the “lawful demise” of the factory. Don’t worry, we were assured, we can still come back the next day to get our things.

After the announcement, I approached the mic and told the assembly: “Hold your heads high, as you go out of this place. You are workers with dignity, and we have worked for years in this place with grace and dignity.” As a union officer, I also appealed for them not to take the severance pay on that same day. The union will have to meet to plan the next move and we have to remain united in the next collective course of action.

The former union president stood up to declare he’s going to be the first to get “his money” and that I was in no position to tell anyone not to get the money due them. If I were you, he says, I’d get the money since the factory is closing anyway, and the offer may not stand for long.

Everyone knew the real color of that sleaze-bag and that is why he was repeatedly rebuffed during the local elections. But on that day, the people chose to follow him.

As I watched my friends and colleagues, form a queue to get their severance pay, I felt as though a thousand daggers have pierced my heart. I felt numb. Like being orphaned a hundred times over.



It was a sad, sad, sad day for me.


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The next day, the company allowed us to retrieve our personal belongings. What I took liberally were pictures, instead. Like a madman, I took pictures of every nook and cranny. I was trying to freeze-frame my decade-long memory of the place. The factory, like Willy Wonka’s, had been a special place for me, too.

I took shot after shot even under a light drizzle---something I got to rue later because it ruined the digital camera.

Meanwhile, the rest of the union officers decided to capitulate. The company deviously included the salary for that week into the computation of the severance pay. And since we practically have no more money just before pay day, the check would really come in handy. “Look at it this way,” a fellow union officer opines, “at least the management paid up unlike other companies that closed shop”. Still, I was not convinced.

I was still hurting from the stab wounds I got yesterday.

Then the union president and vice-president talked to me. I, the union secretary, was the last hold-out. They told me it’s a war I can’t win. The people have already surrendered. I knew that, of course. I knew when to accept defeat but maybe, I just needed someone else to spell the same for me.

Finally, as I approach the severance pay counter, I can hear the Department of Labor vultures and their minions heave a sigh of relief as they patted themselves on the back ostensibly, for another job well done. After I signed the check, the Japanese president, sitting at the far end of the table, extended his hand to shake mine.

I turned my back and quickly walked away.

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