Employers urged to share profits

MANILA, Philippines – President Aquino yesterday called on employers to be more generous to their workers by way of profit sharing.

Aquino told the 32nd National Conference of Employers of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) to provide “productivity incentives” to employees.

Aquino said a profit sharing scheme would benefit businessmen since it would mean a return of investment since business is on an upward trend.

Aquino told the forum that profit sharing had been his advocacy since his days as a Tarlac congressman, up to the time he was senator in 2007.

“We called it the profit-sharing incentives plan or the productivity incentives plan. We are advocating and we are asking: can you not come up with an incentive program for our workers?” he asked the delegates during a speech at the Marriott Hotel in Pasay City.

Aquino said the “tradition (of) confrontational relationships between management and labor” will be done away with, as both parties will be working hand in hand to keep the company afloat for a long time, earning profits for employers and generating jobs in the process.

“Should we not encourage going back to the fundamentals, which are labor and management working together, as the keys to any company’s success. It redounds to society’s progress,” he said, citing the continued growth of business process outsourcing (BPOs).

“What I’m trying to say is this: When we assist the labor component of our various firms, we are, in effect, laying the groundwork for the increase in our market which undoubtedly benefits everybody,” the President asserted.

Aquino also assured big business that he would not support any legislated wage hike, particularly the P125 increase being proposed by militant workers groups.

He said he would allow the regional wage boards to decide what is the necessary increase to rate for minimum wage earners.

“We have no intention of asking Congress to legislate an across the board increase in wages, but the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas does believe that certain wage adjustments through the regional wage boards can be absorbed by the economy,” Aquino said. –-Delon Porcalla (The Philippine Star) with Elisa Osorio