Labor group: Abolish wage boards

CEBU, Philippines —  Labor group Partido Manggagawa wants Congress to abolish the regional wage boards in the country.

Instead of the wage boards, PM is seeking a national wage commission to reform the country’s wage fixing mechanisms that, according to the group, fail to bring wages nearer the living wage as mandated by the Constitution.

PM Secretary General Judy Miranda said that the Maharlika bill should also be scrapped -- referring to the controversial Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF) that Congress is pushing -- in favor of the workers agenda such as wage hikes and wage reforms, ending endo, and the creation of strong public employment programs.

The group said the sovereign wealth fund can only be sustained by wealth tax as the public sector runs on deficit and the real surplus is at the hands of the wealthiest businessmen.

This coming December 16, groups will be filing their petition before the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board-7, according to Cebu Labor Coalition (CELAC) spokesperson Metudio Belarmino.

“We will file finally on December 16. We are still gathering support signatures from the unions,” Belarmino said.

Wage hike petitioners said that based on their final computation, they will be seeking a P292.50 daily wage increase for minimum wage workers amid the rising cost of basic necessities and services.

Belarmino said that aside from seeking to increase private sector’s minimum wage, they will also seek to increase the monthly rate of domestic workers by P1,000 per month.

It can recalled that the Regional Tripartite and Wage Productivity Board-7 granted a P31.00 daily wage hike for mimimum wage earners and P500.00 monthly increase for domestic workers that took effect on June 14, 2022.

However, labor groups said such increase is far cry from that what was asked by petitioners that ranged from P308.00 daily to P430.00 daily for the minimum wage workers and P1,500 per month for domestic workers.

Aside from CELAC, other petitioners for a new wage hike are LONBISCO Employees Organization (LEO) represented by its president, Alvin P. Pino,  Metaphil Workers Union (MWU) represented by its president, Melchor S. Atupan, Union Bank Employees Association (UBEA) represented by its president Nicholou D. Malazarte, among others.

“Currently and presently, over the past weeks and months oil prices soars to a high level that it also pushed increases in the basic commodities,” their petition read.

The petition stated that with increases of the basic commodities, the purchasing power of the peso (PPP) of the workers erodes rapidly and the petitioners believed that development of the Region presents supervening conditions that warrants and justifies the issuance of a new wage order.

Other factors to be considered for the wage increase, the petitioners stated are the fare increase of the PUJ modernization which is being implemented.

“A wage adjustment is direly needed by the minimum wage workers including the domestic workers in the region and that an immediate economic relief must be extended to the workers by augmenting their income by P 292.50 on a daily basis and P1,000.00 for domestic workers per month to maintain the purchasing power of the workers,” the petitioners stated.

PM-Cebu is also set to file its own wage hike petition, according to its spokesman, Dennis Derige, who cited high inflation.  – JMD (FREEMAN)