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News
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| Editorial
| Opinion
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Volume
13, Number 24 |
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Also
in this section: Earning a few bucks, learning work habits Child labor that interferes with a kid's education is widely considered to be an abusive situation and there are international treaties to which Panama is a party that are designed to restrict it. On the other hand, there are lots of Panamanian kids who need to earn some money to have a dignified standard of living that their poor families can't afford, and others who have to earn money to buy things they want, save for their higher education or launch themselves as more independent players when they get into the adult world of work and business. Moreover, working itself is a part of a decent education. Work habits, getting along with colleagues and labor relations with clients and supervisors are all skills that need to be picked up along the way. These boys get ahead a quarter or a dollar at a time, packing bags at the El Rey on Via España and taking them out to customers' cars. So what's proper etiquette for dealing with grocery bag packers in Panama? There isn't an agreed standard, and generally gringos or those who have worked for tips are more generous than others. If a person does you a service, you should pay that person --- a quarter for packing bags that you carry out of the store and a dollar for packing a lot of bags and then taking them out to your car are reasonable and common compensations. (If you're of the North American persuasion and somebody on the upper end of the Panamanian economic scale tells you that this sort of tipping is too generous, then you have encountered both the great class-based fault line in Panamanian society and one of the reasons why most Panamanians tend to like Americans. Gringos, notwithstanding how badly some US-based corporations can act abroad, do tend to have this sense of justice about the value of human labor and it tends to be appreciated by most Panamanians.) Photo by José F. Ponce Also
in this section: Editorial
| Opinion
| Letters
| Arts
| Review
| Community
| Fun
| Travel Make
the Executive Hotel your headquarters in Panama City --- http://ww.executivehotel-panama.com
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©
2007 by Eric Jackson
email: editor@thepanamanews.com or
Mailing
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