ALU to file P75 wage hike

CEBU, Philippines -  The Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines will be filing a P75 across-the-board wage hike petition before Labor Day on May 1.

Ferdinand Jumapao, ALU-TUCP director for membership and services department, said that they are still conducting meetings but assured that they will file the petition.

Jumapao said there is a need to ask for a wage increase.

Earlier, the Cebu Labor Coalition headed by the Alliance of Progressive Labor filed their P120 across-the-board wage hike petition last February 14.

The board members of the Regional Tripartite Wage and Productivity Board in Region 7 met the other night to determine whether there are supervening conditions that would merit a wage increase.

Hidelito Pascual, management representative to the board, said the members of the board have not decided yet as to the schedule of the public hearing of the wage hike petition filed by CELAC.

It can be recalled that ALU-TUCP filed a P100 across-the-board wage hike for workers in Region 7 while CELAC asked for a P128.60 increase in the daily wage of the workers in the region in 2009. However, only P18 was approved for workers receiving minimum wage.

Earlier, businessman Robert Go, director of the Philippine Retailers Association-Cebu, commented that an across-the-board wage increase is never a good idea because it destroys the economy, adding that increase wage will just result to depletion of jobs.

The businessman said that the country is losing big companies because of the expensive wages here and transfer to other countries like China, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Currently, the minimum wage for Central Visayas is P285 for Class A towns, P265 for Class B towns, P255 for Class C towns and P240 for Class D towns.

Central Visayas has between 85,000 to 100,000 workers.  (FREEMAN)