P75 pay hike for Metro workers urged

TUCP cites constant rise in prices of oil, fares

MANILA, Philippines – The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) yesterday asked the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) for a P75 across-the-board daily wage increase for workers in Metro Manila.

TUCP party-list Representative Raymond Mendoza said the wage hike was necessary to help laborers in the metropolis cope with the continuous rise in prices of basic goods and services.

In addition, the Monetary Board and National Economic Development Authority have both said that the Philippines has not suffered as much as other countries from the international financial crisis, he said.

The current minimum wage in the National Capital Region is pegged at P382.

Mendoza noted that the last time Metro workers received a salary hike was in 2008.

“That [P20] increase, small as it was, has been overtaken by continuing increases in the prices of petroleum products, transport fares and in basic goods and services,” he said.

He pointed out that consumer prices in Metro Manila rose by 5 percent from June 2008 to January this year with the figure expected to go up to 9 percent in December.

Power and water utilities as well as oil firms are also planning to raise their rates, Mendoza said.

“If wages will remain stagnant, then more workers will certainly slide [into] poverty and … the middle class will become the newly poor,” he added in a statement.

Mendoza also said the TUCP refrained from asking for a wage increase for two years because of the global financial crisis. But since it has not affected the Philippines as much, he said it was high time that workers received a salary increase.

“The world and the country have started to recover from the crisis, and it is only right for wages and wage workers to catch the wave of recovery. The raised wages would also be expected to contribute to rising local demand for goods and services, and to further stimulate economic recovery,” he said.

Mendoza said that of the P75 minimum wage increase the TUCP was seeking, P19 reflected the actual increase of prices from June 2008 to June this year.

He added that P35 reflected the projected rise of the consumer price index this year while the remaining P21 stood for the 21 years that there have been no increases in real wages since 1989.

Mendoza also cited other figures which he said supported workers’ call for a wage hike. He pointed out that the NCR’s Gross Regional Domestic Product in constant prices went up from P220,972 million in 1991 to P468,382 million in 2008 or an average yearly growth of 6.6 percent.

“Workers have done their share in improving the standards of living in the country, particularly in National Capital Region. Their own standards of living, however, have not risen. It is about time that overall improvements in standards of living … be reflected in real gains in the minimum wage,” he said. –Leila Salaverria, Philippine Daily Inquirer