Guide Questions: a. What is your understanding of Labor Law? b. How would you summarize the Basic Principles or Concepts of Labor Law? c. What are your main criticisms and comments on the Basic Principles or Concepts of Labor Law? Reference: PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING THE CODE When the Labor Code was issued in 1974, the Minister of Labor (who was never a pawn or clone of the martial law president) explained that seven innovative principles permeated the entire composition of the Labor Code, namely: 1) Labor relations must be made both responsive and responsible to national development. 2) Labor laws or labor relations during a period of national emergency must substitute rationality for confrontation; therefore, strikes or lockouts give away to a rational process which is arbitration. 3) Laggard justice in the labor field is injurious to the workers, the employers and the public; labor justice can be made expeditious without sacrificing due process. 4) Manpower development and employment must be regarded as a major dimension of labor policy, for there can be no real equality of bargaining power under conditions of severe mass unemployment. 5) There is a global labor market available to qualified Filipinos, especially those who are unemployed or whose employment is tantamount to unemployment because of their very little earnings. 6) Labor laws must command adequate resources and acquire a capable machinery for effective and sustained implementation; otherwise, they merely breed resentment not only of the workers but also of the employers. When labor laws cannot be enforced, both the employers and the workers are penalized, and only a corrupt few those who are in charge of implementation may get the reward they do not deserve. 7) There should be popular participation in national policy-making through what is now called tripartism