2M to benefit from wage hike; labor groups irked

MORE than 2 million workers will benefit from the P22 hike on the daily minimum wage in Metro Manila granted by the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board-National Capital Region (RTWPB-NCR) but labor groups are angry, calling the pay hike a pittance and an insult to laborers.

NCR wage board secretary Aida Andres said some 2.18 million of the estimated 4.2 million workers in Metro Manila will benefit from the P22 wage hike approved by the NCR wage board on Monday night. The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) had petitioned for a P75 across-the-board wage hike last March.

Deputy director Avito Sto. Tomas of the National Wages and Productivity Commission (NWPC) said the wage order will be published on June 16 and will take effect 15 days later on July 1. It will hike minimum wage for NCR workers from P382 to P404 a day.

Andres said the decision was one of the hardest they had to make and it took them a longer time to deliberate on the order. “Isa ito sa pinakamahirap na decision namin… lampas pa nga kami sa one month period dapat e,” Andres said referring to the wage board rule that the decision on the wage order must come out 30 days after the last public hearing held last April 29.

TUCP was not happy over the board’s reply to its petition. “TUCP is disappointed at how little the wage board thinks the workers deserve… we will be filing a motion for reconsideration of the decision,” said TUCP official Raffy Mapalo.

Sto. Tomas said it is the TUCP’s right to appeal before the NWPC while noting that historically, the wage arm of the Department of Labor and Employment has never deviated from the order of the wage boards.

Sto. Tomas said TUCP has 10 days to appeal its case and they should offer proof that the decision of the wage board needs amendment or reversal.

Malacañang also defended the P22 hike with Dennis Arroyo, policy director of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), calling the wage hike a “triumph” for the members of the wage board because the negotiations started with zero, then at P15, and finally, P22.

Arroyo said the displeasure of the employers’ sector is an expected reaction but “it shows compromise (and) that’s how it plays out in the negotiation.”

He also tried to mollify the labor sector, which is clamoring for a higher pay raise, by saying that wages in the Philippines are one of the highest in the Asian region and a higher amount might restrict the growth of investments and job creation.

Deputy presidential spokesman Gary Olivar said the wage order is “clearly a product of careful consideration…based on considerations in the area.” He said the Philippines is still recovering from the global economic recession so “we have to be careful.”

“Our recovery is investment-led and if the investments stop coming, titirik tayo. Everybody sacrifices in order to move our nation forward,” he said.

The militant Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) was bitter as it called the pay hike mere “loose change” and called for the abolition of the regional wage boards for “betraying the working class.”

“The wage boards have repeatedly betrayed the workers since they were established in 1989. The yawning disparity between the minimum wage and the cost of living is the clearest expression of a system failure,” PM chairman Renato Magtubo said. “P22 is not even enough for workers to buy a kilo of commercial rice or even the cheapest NFA rice worth P25. Since the last wage hike was in June 2008, the wage hike is effectively P11 per year over two years. Na-onse na naman ang mga manggagawa.”

Magtubo said the wage hike “exposes the real economic legacy of the Gloria Arroyo government—deepening poverty exacerbated by a cheap labor policy and lack of social protection. The 7.3 percent economic growth is a myth for the workers since they cannot partake of so-called progress.”

He added that if the recommendation of the Department of Finance to increase VAT from 12 to 15 percent is approved, then half of the wage hike will be wiped out.

Magtubo said PM will talk to the labor groups which sponsored or supported the P75 wage petition on a campaign to reform the wage fixing system through Congress. “We want a National Wage Commission formed with the mandate to fix wages based on the single criterion of cost of living. Despite the huge gap between the present minimum wage and the current cost of living, the National Wage Commission can achieve equalizing the two by a host of mechanisms among which are direct wage increases, tax exemptions, price discounts at social security subsidies for workers,” Magtubo said. – Gerard Naval and Regina Bengco, MAlaya