Sunday, August 12, 2007

My opinion for the news today

I just could not believe it to read in the news today (Marianas Variety) about the 3 Filipinos that have not been renewed because of their participation for the Dekada Movement. Are you guys saying that your employers have not being fair? HELLO! Do you guys think that those employers of you will be happy to see their employees supporting the Dekada? If you guys do not want to lose your jobs it will be nice if you focused on providing good work to your employer rather than spending you energies on a group that seems more interested in having you leave your jobs and go to the US. One more thing, if Dekada really was just about human rights etc. they would have be working to assure that long-term workers had the privilege to remain in the CNMI to look for another job if they lose their jobs rather than on having the ability to leave your jobs and the CNMI. Also, if Dekada is about rights then why did they want to have rights start after 10 years? What type of "rights" group starts by excluding so many Filipinos and others from receiving the rights that the group want? I just really hope that those of us (Filipino) here in the CNMI will now realize that there no need to be in that group as they excluded so many from the protection and rights they wanted and now it looks like they can't even protect themselves. I bet they are going to use CNMI labor laws ( the same ones they think are so bad) to dispute their releases in an attempt to stay in the CNMI, though they want to leave for the US they do not want to leave and go home.

2 comments:

sam said...

You are wrong on so many levels. First, who said that the three of them are NOT good workers? Being a good worker does not mean that you cannot choose who you want to speak with or what you have to say. The 1st amendment allows freedom of speech -the 14th allows freedom of association. Being fired after your contract is renewed for participating in legal activities or speaking up for rights is called retaliation and is illegal under US labor laws.

You are also wrong on what Dekada supports. Why not call them and talk to them? They do not support time limits -the federal gvt is proposing those. So you think "Workers" should just come to the CNMI and work? Not be part of the community? Not be respected? Maybe the CNMI employers can hire robots who have no opinion and just are here to work. Do you believe in family, in democracy? What sad remarks....

Tess said...

Talk about wrong! First I did not state they are not good workers but rather raised the issue that perhaps if they had focused on their jobs they might not have the employment issues. Perhaps they could have been better workers but only perhaps and certainly not automatically not good, maybe they just needed to be better. Secondly of course all of us have the rights under the US and CNMI Constitutions and laws. I indicated they would most likely use the laws to stay in the CNMI, even though they have issues with CNMI law (even on TV at least one of the leaders said he was using the CNMI 45 day provision as well as US laws to fight to stay here in this terrible, abusive place). Third, do you know that dekada means a "long time" and at meetings years ago they indicated the hope for "10 years" to mean a better status, just look it up in newspapers from years ago. They were about limits from the begining and therefor they were also wanting to exclude some workers from the protection they were seeking for themselves. Fortunately, although we are hired just to work we can and should be members of the communinity, you just don't have to wait for permanent status to be respected. This blog is from the FMI, a group so repected and such a part of the community here that even the somewhat suspect group called "Tao Tao Tano" indicated in meetings that they welcome and respect the FMI (which the majority of the members is Filipino). Finally, belief in family does not mean you have to stay in one place as family is where the heart is (though I completly agree to the challenges we would all face if we had to take our children to our homelands, what a terrible fate some suggest that would be). As for democracy, well I don't know of any country that allows everybody to vote and the proposals from the US right now would mean the workers could not ever vote becuase of the special status that would not lead to citizenship; so don't make this about democracy!