Husgahan Natin: Mga Isyu at Kasong Manggagawa by Atty. Remigio D. Saladero, Jr.
Published by Prometheus Publishing Corporation
156 pages
Husgahan Natin: Mga Isyu at Kasong Manggagawa is a must-read for workers, especially in these times when workers’ rights are being violated left and right.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
BOOK REVIEW
Bulatlat
Three months of detention at the Oriental Mindoro Provincial Jail and subsequently being slapped with new murder charges did not take the defiance out of lawyer Remigio Saladero, Jr. Shortly after getting out of jail, he launched his book, Husgahan Natin: Mga Isyu at Kasong Manggagawa (Let Us Judge These: Workers’ Issues and Cases).
Published by Prometheus Publishing Corporation, Husgahan Natin is a collection of selected articles Saladero wrote for the alternative newspaper Pinoy Weekly, where he has a regular column with the same title.
In his message at the book’s beginning, Saladero explains why he took up the work of writing on workers’ issues and cases:
Matagal-tagal na rin akong abogado ng mga manggagawa. Sa loob ng panahong ito, hindi ko maiwasang mapansin ang isang bagay. Kulang na kulang tayo sa mga babasahin na nagpapaliwanag sa mga manggagawa tungkol sa kanilang mga karapatan. Kung mayroon man, ang babasahing ito ay nasa wikang banyaga o kaya ay puno ng mga kumplikadong konsepto at matataas na terminong tanging mga abogado o yaong nbakapag-aral ng batas lamang ang nakakaunawa.
Kaya nang ako ay alukin ng patnugutan ng Pinoy Weekly na magsulat ng isang kolum para sa mga manggagawa, hindi na ako tumanggi pa. Naisip ko na ang pagpapaliwanag sa mga manggagawa, sa pinakapayak na paraan at gamit ang ating likas na salita, ng mga isyu at batas na umiinog sa lipunan at nakakaapekto sa kanilang buhay, ay makakatulong kahit paano upang lalo silang maging magiit at mapunyagi sa pagkamit ng kanilang karapatan.
(I have been a labor lawyer for quite sometime. All through this period, there was one thing I could not help but notice: we severely lack reading materials that explain to workers their rights. If there are any, these reading materials would be written in a foreign language or are full of complicated concepts and highfaluting terms that only lawyers or those who studied law could understand.
This is why when the editors of Pinoy Weekly offered me a column for workers, I did not refuse. I thought that explaining to workers the issues and laws that define society and affect their lives would help in encouraging them to be more militant and resolute in fighting for their rights.)
After a few years, Prometheus Publishing Corporation approached him and offered to collect some of his articles into a book which, he was told, could serve as a reference material that workers could use. He did not refuse, and thus was born Husgahan Natin.
Husgahan Natin is divided into two parts: Mga Isyu ng Manggagawa (Workers’ Issues) and Piling mga Kaso sa Paggawa (Selected Labor Cases).
Readers would be in for a big surprise if they think that all that the book’s first part has to offer are articles on wages and benefits, working conditions, and unionization. The scope is very broad, encompassing as it does such subjects as the history of the labor movement, basic human rights, trade liberalization, privatization of social services, deregulation of the economy, fascism and militarization. The message is clear: all social, political, and economic issues are workers’ issues.
The second part tackles notable labor cases, with Saladero giving the facts of each case as well as the jurisprudence on these.
But the articles in these parts, stylistically, will not remind one of the Supreme Court Reports Annotated (known as the SCRA to pre-law and law students, legal researchers, lawyers and judges): Saladero has rendered these articles in a style that would make these easy reading even for those who are not used to what Sen. Rodolfo Biazon once described as “legalistic gobbledygook”. Saladero simplifies legal cases without being simplistic, so even lawyers or those who have studied law can also appreciate what he has done in the second part of Husgahan Natin.
This part highlights cases in which Supreme Court decisions were favorable to the workers, but Saladero does not hesitate to criticize those rulings that went against workers’ interests.
His being a lawyer notwithstanding, Saladero is aware that the law is not the decisive factor that would make or break workers’ struggles. This he makes clear in one of his articles on labor cases:
Sa manggagawa man nakakiling ang batas, kung kulang sa konsolidasyon at pagkakaisa ang unyon, masasayang lang ang mga batas na ito. Ganoon din sa panig ng kompanya. Sa kanya man nakakiling ang batas, kung mas matibay ang pagkakaisa ng mga manggagawa, hindi niya makakamit ang lamang niyang ito.
(Even if a law favors workers, it will go to waste if the unions lack consolidation and unity. The same thing goes for companies. Even if a law favors them, they will not be able to make use of this advantage of theirs if the workers’ unity is stronger.)
The book is a must-read for workers, especially in these times when workers’ rights are being violated left and right. (Bulatlat.com)
