Journal Critique on Precarious Work

Margarita B. Nograles                                                           Journal Critique #1

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Article Reviewed:

Edralin, D (2014). Precarious Work Undermines Decent Work: The Unionized Hotel Workers’ Experience, DLSU Business & Economics Review, 24 (1): 13-26.

        The article “Precarious Work Undermines Decent Work: The Unionized Hotel Workers’ Experience” discussed the impact of precarious work on hotel workers. The title in its own is already clear on the topic and the issue of what the article will talk about. True enough, this can be seen as a one sentence construction of what the entire article speaks about as explained in the abstract portion. The problem being addressed in this article is the effect on hotel workers as hotel management resort to precarious work practices. Although this problem can be inferred from the title and the abstract portion of the article, this was not clearly laid out in the beginning of the article. It would have been easier to place a sentence clearly defining the problem the author wishes to address. Despite this, however, the abstract gives a brief yet clear overview of the paper and its relevant parts. It provides for a straightforward recommendation of how such problem should be addressed—craft new laws in order to give more job security (p.13).

In starting the article, a quote was placed describing the concept of work. This, in itself, is already a good way to grab the reader’s attention since it is both relevant to the topic of the article and interesting more than it already is. As most people can relate to what work is and should be, this article is already interesting enough to read into a relevant issue in society today. Additionally, this quote is similar to how the article was started, explaining how “work is an essential human activity in society.” (p. 13).

The author clearly explains the issue prevalent in a hotel setting, not only for those with precarious work but also for the union itself. She decided to use references such as the principle of workers’ rights, principle of social protection, principle of employment promotion and the principle of social dialogue in order to show the reader how this problem within the working class should be addressed as it is tied within principles of society and rights of each individual. In addition to such reference, the author included sources that are relevant, realistic, and convincing as such resources came from the ILO, DOLE, and others from International Unions around the world such as Europe. In providing both local and international sources, the author gives an entire concept of what exactly is the definition of precarious work and also how this definition is translated to the statistics projected within the local setting by DOLE, through BLES. One quick note, however, is that the definition of what precarious work has been overemphasized as this seemed repetitive throughout so one definition from an international perspective and a local perspective would have been enough. What the author could have done was to give an explanation or an example on what exactly these hotel workers do in relation to the definition could have been emphasized in order to know the actual setting of the work done by the workers. Additionally, the DOLE statistic on the employees in precarious work could have been further broken down into sectors such as the percentage of workers belonging to the hotel industry within the statistical breakdown of DOLE. This will give a more relevant view to the reader of how bad the situation on precarious work is within the hotel industry as this is the focus of the paper indicated in the objectives. In stating that the objective of the paper is to determine precarious work in unionized hotels and to know the factors that drive unionized hotels to resort to precarious work practices, the reference on statistics would have created a bigger impact in showing the breakdown of the statistic on precarious hotel workers.