The best thing about Labour Day is the Public Holiday, don’t you? All the elaborate speeches and themes don’t really help the average worker. Come May 2nd, we still work under the same terrible conditions just like before. I do count my blessings. I really do, for while I’m underemployed and underpaid, I’m better off than scores who’re unemployed. I can afford to pay my rent, have the occasional dinner at an upscale restaurant and to the best of my knowledge, don’t owe anyone. That said, workers like myself have a long way to go. My workplace doesn’t offer many benefits. In fact, only the top executives get benefits. All the rest of us get is salary. No transport, lunch or housing allowance and certainly no health insurance. You look at your paycheck and wonder how in the world you’re supposed to live on that, yet somehow, we survive. I wonder how my colleagues with children make it though. I guess that’s why many of them have found ways to “take” from the company. Don’t ask me what exactly it is they do. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble. I was thinking about the 400 plus fatalities of the Rana Plaza collapse and wondered how greedy one can be to play with people’s lives like that. Even the death penalty is not enough punishment for the money-hungry owners and engineers of that building, neither will it be a deterrent and in a couple of months, we’ll read about another factory collapse or fire and hundreds more will be lost. I hate that I can’t do anything about things like that and those who can are busy stuffing their pockets. $50 is what those factory workers are paid per month and their bosses had the nerve to threaten them with the sack if they didn’t return to work after many voiced their concerns about the cracks in the complex. Workers in various fields face similar risks every day. Miners are never certain they’ll exit safely after their shift. It could be a mine collapse or gas explosion. But even if they survive that, long-term exposure to gasses down there can cause chest infections and cancers they can’t afford to treat since they earn peanuts while the mine owners make billions. It’s so unfair. I once worked in a restaurant and couldn’t understand why we served all these sumptuous dishes only to return to the backroom to bland beans and potatoes! It’s no different for housemaids who are grossly mistreated. She can cook for the family but can’t sit at the table. She’ll be sent to the shops to buy Soda but can’t have some. She sleeps on the floor, can’t watch TV, is only paid every three months… No wonder they beat up your kids and drink all the milk when you’re not around. I would too. We need to do something about these terrible working conditions. Something that will let those who take advantage of us know that we’re not stupid after all. If only I could come up with something! I remember a strike by the AGOA girls in Kampala some years ago that exposed the abuse the girls were subjected to by their bosses. We’re always reluctant to speak up, fearing that we will lose the job. But what good is a job that enslaves you and puts you in harm’s way? I hope a day will come when minimum wage will not just be a concept, when workers in every field will be paid by the hour, overtime and all. A time when employers will not make us feel like they’re doing us a favour by employing us when the truth of the matter is that it is our labour and skills that rake in the profits. To be continued...
