Labor sector officer assails plans to scrap wage board

A labor sector representative to the Central Visayas Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board yesterday hit the proposal of some legislators to abolish the wage boards for being inutile.

Marianito Ventura, of Trade Union of the Philippines and Allied Services, criticized the militant party-list representatives in the House who proposed the scrapping of the wage board.

Bayan Muna party-list and its allies in the House raised the plan claiming that the wage boards have failed to serve their mandate. But Ventura disagreed saying that militant groups always criticize whoever is in power.

For Ventura, the board has somehow helped the workers that he did not see the need to abolish it despite management's domination of its composition.

Ventura, in an interview over dyLA, said the wage board has initiated most if not all wage hikes in the region. On this account, the people composing it should be the ones abolished not the board, he said.

The voting power of government representatives in the board should also be clipped, Ventura suggested further, contending that these people should not be allowed to vote at all because they always connived with management. - Fred P. Languido