COMMENTARY

SM's Slaves

As an SM saleslady, you go through hell every freaking day of the week. For what? As a contractual, your salary is a little over P200. There's absolutely no security of tenure. And the employment process itself is dehumanizing.

By CARLOS H. CONDE

Imagine yourself as a saleslady at SM (ShoeMart). For eight hours, sometimes more, you are made to stand about the merchandise, you stretch your legs every so often, wondering about those darn varicose veins. You are forced to smile at everybody that passes by, including those jerks (mostly teenagers) who get off by watching you as though you're Izza Ignacio in a Tanduay calendar.

But you can't complain because before you were hired, the SM management made sure to inspect almost every inch of your body, as though you were the merchandise the department store would sell, as though you were Izza Ignacio in a Tanduay calendar.

They made sure that you were between 18 and 25 years old. They made sure that you were fair-skinned, a little taller than most. Heck, you wouldn't even be surprised if the recruitment officer asked you if you had joined Magandang Tanghali Bayan's search for Calendar Girl because that's what seems to be the criteria for hiring at SM. The HRD guys asked you to sashay in front of them; they even asked you to raise your skirt a little to see if you have killer legs.

So you stand there all day. You want to go to the rest room but you have to have a pass from the supervisor before you can do that. And when you do, you're not allowed to use the escalator because the owners probably thought that wouldn't look good -- a saleslady going up along with the rest of mankind? Que horror!

As you go home, you can't get out of the mall without the guards frisking you. Sometimes the guards would snap the strap of your bra, or even deliberately touch your breasts and behind. The guards would also ask you to raise your skirt to see whether you were wearing shorts, half-slip or girdle, which are not allowed. And because, like 85 percent of your co-workers at SM, you are a contractual, the guards are sometimes hard on you than the regular workers who are so few (only 1,447 are regulars at SM, out of the more than 20,000 employees) you'd wonder why the labor department has not raided the store for unfair labor practice.

You go through hell every freaking day of the week. For what? As a contractual, your salary is a little over P200. There's absolutely no security of tenure because you were hired as a contractual for at least three months, maximum five months. And you can't be rehired just like that. In fact, if ever you re-apply (which is kind of stupid, if you ask me), you'll have to wait for a year because all year round, SM hires only contractuals, thus Henry Sy is actually earning millions of pesos because he doesn't have to give you benefits, raise your wages, health plans (kahit man lang for those varicose veins), etc. Heck, you probably even made Henry Sy what he is today -- one of Asia's richest men. (According to Forbes magazine, he was the second richest Filipino in 1995.) In 1998, SM made P2.7 billion and is expanding ever wider.

You'd think then that the few lucky ones who were made regular are enjoying all of Sy's generosity. Think again. The regulars' union renegotiated with management the remaining two years of their collective bargaining agreement and demanded, rightfully perhaps, an increase of at least P135, considering that the measly P255 they're earning is only half of what a family in Metro Manila needs to live decently. But the SM guys would have none of that. They even reduced the amount by counter-offering during the CBA negotiations in late 1999, haha!, P18, then P15. And you thought the regulars are the luckiest in Sy's universe!

And so the regulars are now threatening to strike, which is just as well I guess. But don't even think that they are only fighting for their own skin. They're as concerned about yours as they are about theirs. Because if they win this fight against unbridled greed and exploitation, the thousands of SM girls like you who have to endure such dehumanizing experience every freaking day inside those freaking malls would reap the rewards -- just as militant labor did for the rest of us when they successfully fought for whatever benefits we, the non-SM guys, are currently enjoying. Don't buy the crap that you SM girls should not be striking because you have to help preserve jobs. That's always been the line of greedy and abusive businessmen like Sy and those incompetent sons of bitches at the labor department. That's also the line that allows Sy and his kind to get away with not only turning you into a whore but a slave as well. 

(This article first appeared in The Manila Times in late 1999, shortly before SM’s workers went on strike.)


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