Senate bets call for overhaul of labor and wage laws

On the occasion of Labor Day, Makabayan senatorial bet and Nacionalista Party guest candidate Satur Ocampo yesterday said that the next presidency should strive hard to make up for the serious neglect workers suffered under the Macapagal-Arroyo administration. He said that next presidency’s top priorities should include higher wages and benefits for laborers.

“At the onset, wages should be increased. This is the first means that will give workers economic relief. The government’s cost of living estimates have even increased, but still far from actual costs. In the National Capital Region, the cost of living for a family of six stands at P917 daily, while the minimum wage is still pegged at only P382. The real value of the P382, however, is only P236.97 given the peso’s declining purchasing power. This has to be remedied,” Ocampo said.

He said it was long overdue that Republic Act 6727 or the Wage Rationalization Law be scrapped. “The wages of workers nationwide have increased only by an average of P10.75 year-on-year since this law was implemented in 1988. Prices of basic goods and utility rates, however, have increased a hundredfold within the same time-frame. The quality of life of most working class families continue to deteriorate instead of improve because this. RA 6727 is a law that suppressed wages and allowed the greater exploitation of workers,” Ocampo said.

He noted that RA 6727 was enacted under the presidency of “landlord President” Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino and is at the crux of the very chaotic and highly exploitative wage setting system in the country.

Ocampo also called for the abolition of the regional wage boards, which RA 6727 created.

“The repeal of these anti-worker, anti-poor wage laws and the enactment of pro-labor laws in their stead can provide temporary reprieve for the working people. The houses of Congress must prioritize the repeal of these measures and pass laws that will uphold the economic welfare of workers and the rest of the working people,” he said.

In the same vein, another senatorial candidate, Gwen Pimentel of the Nacionalista Party, also yesterday called for the establishment of a “true living wage and better working conditions” for Filipino workers.

She said unless the government is able to give full protection to labor and promote full employment and equality of employment opportunities for all “it cannot be considered to have fulfilled its basic obligations to our people.”

According to Pimentel, “wages below the cost of living are inhuman and degrading, and are the basic reason for the poverty and hunger that afflict more than 40 percent of our people. It also means less productivity for labor, because a hungry worker is not a productive worker.”

She cited a survey conducted by the Union Bank of Switzerland placing the Filipino workers’ wage as the “second lowest in the world.”

She said the same survey showed that “the wage rate in the Philippines is way behind those in other countries; in the United States, wage rate is seventeen times more than the wage rate in the Philippines; in developed countries, ten times more; and in less developed countries, four times more.”

Pimentel noted that the same study showed that Filipino workers “are forced to suffer under poor working conditions in exchange for unemployment and eventual starvation, Filipino workers have long been deprived of the right to life and duty to work.” –Daily Tribune