Roseanne Regina A.

Sola BA 1
1HR1 August 27, 2014

Reflections from a White American Woman Working in a Garment Factory in the Philippines

Questions for Discussion

1. How unusual do you think the jobs like this are?
For me, jobs like that are very unusual nowadays, especially here in the Philippines. Because
based on what I know, you are only required to work for 8 hours but in the closing case about the
workers in the garment factory, they work for 12 hours, Monday to Friday. Usually Saturdays and
Sundays are the free time or day offs of the workers but in the early 90s, even weekends are their
working day which is very hard and exhausting. . It is very rare now to hear cases and conditions
like that in a management or factories today.

2. Where do you hear about them?
As Ive said earlier, nowadays, its very rare to hear unusual situations like that in a work job
because I think its also because of different approaches of managers in their workers through
time. But there are situations and jobs that are almost alike to what happened to the workers in the
garment factory that I have heard. An example is the unfair wage for the kasambahays and not
having a usual day off here in the country. Another thing that Ive heard was in China, where
even children also work. They also did not compensate the jobs of their workers in the factory.
Leaders or managers may give them higher wages but due to inflation, they still get poorer and
does not achieve the living wage that they need.
3. Given the competitive pressures of the international marketplace, is there anything managers can do to
avoid such situations?
Because of the tightening competition today especially in the international marketplace, managers
may avoid situations like those by giving more emphasis on the needs of their workers. They may
use the two approaches in managing; the mainstream and multistream. They can use the
multistream approach wherein they respect the needs and opinions, not only by the stakeholders
but also their workers. They may also use the mainstream approach where they are more focused
on materialism and individualism but at the same time motivates the workers in the company or
management.