JOE MANGI
An unsung hero not many people hear and know about. But he is one of those responsible for UPNG’s fight against the dual salary structure of the entire public service and many private firms operating in Papua New Guinea.
He’s known simply as Joe Mangi. He comes from a region of
the country, the mid Waghi Valley, where people carry Toyota land cruisers on
their shoulders over boggy and muddy patches of roads and place them on dry
soil for easy driving instead of the other way around…
In the 1980s and 1990s Joe Mangi, along with the other
members of the National Academic Staff Union, led the UPNG administration into
agreeing to certain terms and conditions currently dictated by the Salary
Monitoring Committee – that all should get equal pay for the same amount of
work, such as the expatriates and the nationals. He won his case as the then
President of NASA, but he would be displaced, obviously, for political reasons.
Today, public servants right across the board and across
the country enjoy some of the benefits of what Joe and his colleagues had
fought for – DMA, field and risk allowances, accommodation allowances, the
gagging 7.5% phenomenon, anything to get
closer to bridging the gap… The fight continues. The dual salary system still
exists. But those greedy scavengers within the public service itself know how
to manipulate the system to fatten themselves up as individuals while the rest
of the entire workforce suffers. And will continue to suffer so.
One fine day, we will all receive equal pay for the same
amount of work we do. But for the moment my expatriate colleague gets thrice
more than what I get even though we do the same amount of work. Come Christmas
holidays and he travels in style to Vienna, to Paris, to Dubai, to Tokyo, to
Toronto and Beijing or Cairo. UPNG pays all of that. And here I am, stuck in
this little hole as always, not knowing where the next dough will come from for
me to feed my family….
We need only thank people like Joe Mangi for taking that
initial step successfully in fighting for equal pay for the same amount of work
done. A long time ago, it was the women predominantly who suffered that
terrible economic fate. Today, we are all in the same boat, wherever we are, in
whatever country we find ourselves in...
...and here's the funny part
A lone traveller, a kind of globe trotter, and a very,
very rich one at that, comes to the Waigani Campus one day and in her capacity
as academic and researcher asks for board and lodging. She is granted a room
which she shares with a 4th year student in Literature. Next, she
asks if she can enroll for the basic law degree, a program that runs for 4 or 5
years. UPNG checks her credentials and decides to reject her application on the
grounds that she already has a PhD degree in another area. Her English is perfect, her Spanish pretty
much the same and her Japanese just as good. She appeals. UPNG still says no.
Her roommate says, “Let’s go see the old villager. May be he can help.” But
even the old villager’s advice to the influential hierarchy goes unheeded. So
everybody gives up. And that’s that. End of the story.
Then the literature student goes to the old villager
again and says, “Sir, I would like to publish a book. It’s a kind of
tri-lingual affair. Would you be able to help?”
“Gladly,” said the old villager, “if that is the last
straw in our so-called fruitless endeavors. Now I must wonder what UPNG was
thinking when it rejected your roommate’s application for a law degree.”
Today, the book is published. Its contents appear in
three languages: English, Tok Pisin and Spanish (Argentinian). It enjoys a good
number of hits around the world. But that is the way of internet publications.
As for our collaborator on the book: she is happily
married to a fine young man and is indeed happy in her home of origin, Japan. Ah
me, oh my… if only UPNG could have some kind of foresight, even hindsight… how
much that basic law degree would mean to the world, especially if it came from
UPNG, the premier university in the Pacific!
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