No wage hike on Labor Day – Palace

MANILA, Philippines — President GloriaMacapagal-Arroyo is steering clear of demands for wage increases as part of the Labor Day celebration next week, Malacañang said on Saturday.

Press Secretary Cerge Remonde said the government’s priority was “job security,” meaning to ensure that workers would keep their jobs despite the global financial crisis.

“The thrust is more on job security and job generation above everything else,” he said. “More than wage increase, the consensus among tripartite partners — meaning government, labor and management — is job security and job generation.”

Remonde said decisions on wage increases would be left to the collective bargaining of individual companies with their workers and the tripartite wages and productivity boards around the country.

If it would be any consolation to workers, he said, the government would continue to provide seed money for those seeking to put up micro, small, or medium enterprises.

Since 2004 when the microfinance program was launched, Remonde said it has released P305 billion to 5.6 million micro-finance beneficiaries, generating around 2.5 million jobs in the process.

Remonde said United States President Barack Obama saw the importance of a microfinance program to help get people through the economic turmoil.

He noted that the Obama administration had earmarked $100 million for a micro finance growth fund “as part of the broad measures to address the global recession.”

“Micro and small businesses, especially here at home in the Philippines, have been very efficient job generators,” he said.

“In the credit crunch, however, they will be the first to be adversely affected,” he said.–Christian V. Esguerra, Philippine Daily Inquirer