Labor groups want uniform minimum wage nationwide

By Edu Punay (The Philippine Star), March 4, 2016

MANILA, Philippines – Various labor groups yesterday asked the Supreme Court (SC) to strike down Republic Act 6727 or the Wage Rationalization Act that sets different regional minimum wages in the country.

In a 29-page petition, the groups led by senatorial candidate and former Akbayan party-list congressman Walden Bello asked the high court to stop the National Wage and Productivity Commission (NWPC) and all Regional Tripartite Wage and Productivity Boards (RTWPBs) from further issuing regional wage orders.

They also sought the abolition of the 17 RTWPBs and a uniform national minimum wage.

Petitioners that included the Ugnayang Maralita Laban sa Kahirapan (UMALAB KA) party-list, National Federation of Labor (NFL) and Solidarity of Independent and General Labor Organizations (SIGLO), argued that the law being implemented since 1989 violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

They said the implementation of Republic Act 6727 has set different minimum wages nationwide with the highest at P481 in the National Capital Region (NCR) and as low as P250 in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

“This disparative absurdity is the effect of 26 years of implementing the provisions of RA 6727,” the petition stated, adding that such disparity has deprived over 62 million laborers nationwide of decent wages.

Through lawyer General Du, petitioners said the law also violates Articles 135 and 248 of the Labor Code, which prohibits labor discrimination.

They cited records showing that only 207,507 of 62,189,000 laborers are covered by collective bargaining agreements (CBAs). “This means that virtually most of the Filipino laborers do not have bargaining power over their employers. That is why living wage legislation is important.”

Petitioners further argued that the wages set by NWPC and RTWPB have failed to meet the suggested living wage by various think tanks.

Data showed that the daily minimum wage in May 2012 was P446 while the family living wage was P1,017 or a discrepancy of P571.

“Minimum wages in the country have long failed to provide for an adequate living wage for laborers. This is due to the fact that the criteria in determining minimum wages as defined by RA 6727 are patently erroneous, biased and ultimately unconstitutional,” the petition stated.

The criteria under RA 6727 to determine minimum wage include demand for a living wage, wage adjustment vis-a-vis the consumer price index, the need to induce industries to invest in the countryside, fair return of capital invested and capacity to pay of employers.

But petitioners stressed that the Constitution does not require fair return of capital for the employers.

“Although the petitioners are not unmindful of the macroeconomic fact that investment demands return, such must not be included in the equation of formulating a living wage, or even a minimum wage for that matter,” they argued.

For minimum wage earners in the regions, the best option is to work in Metro Manila that offers the highest minimum wage in the country.

Froilan Caratihan, a manual operator at a textile company in Muntinlupa, would hear his friends in his hometown in Laguna complain and want to work in Metro Manila.

“They would always say pay in Manila is higher than in our province in Laguna, but we do exactly the same work,” he told The STAR.

Caratihan said he would receive about P9,600 every month as wage while some of his friends would receive only P8,000.

Non-agricultural firms pay a minimum P481 per day in Metro Manila as of April last year, while firms in Laguna pay P362.50, according to the RTWPB.

“These problems would stay for as long as higher wage is given to workers in Metro Manila and lower wage is given to those in the provinces,” Ronald Japzon, president of UMALAB KA told reporters yesterday.

The situation prompted Caratihan and other rank-and-file employees and workers’ groups to file a petition seeking to declare unconstitutional the law mandating provincial rates of wages and creating regional wage boards before the SC yesterday.

Du, counsel for the petitioners, said the law violates the Constitution’s living wage provision, meaning it minimizes wages of workers depending on the region where they work, and “represses the chance to get living wages.” – With Ghio Ong