Central Luzon workers get P24 minimum wage increase

SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga, Philippines – The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) here announced yesterday the approval of a P24 increase in the daily minimum wage of workers in Central Luzon.

The last such pay hike for regional workers was granted two years ago.

The P24 wage hike includes the integration of the workers’ old P10 cost-of-living allowance (COLA) into the basic pay and the granting of fresh P14 COLA, Elizabeth Teves, secretary of the Regional Tripartite Wage and Productivity Board, told The STAR.

“In the computation of the 13th month pay and other benefits for the workers, however, only the basic pay is used as parameter,” she added.

While the official computation of the new wage increase is P24, the wage earners would have only the P14 COLA as actual addition to their minimum daily pay.

The new wage order will take effect 15 days from its publication in a newspaper of general circulation in Central Luzon.

Wage Order No. 15 noted that the initial demand for minimum pay hike filed by the Mitsumi Workers’ Union was P75.

But after a study of the socio-economic conditions in the region and deliberations on the results of sectoral consultations and public hearing, the wage board said it deemed as “necessary to provide workers immediate relief from the rising costs of living, taking into account the interests of both labor and management as well as the continued and sustained viability of business and industry in Region 3.”

In all six provinces of Central Luzon, except Aurora where the minimum wage has always been lower, minimum wage earners in non-agricultural firms with assets of more than P30 million will get P316 per day, while those in firms with less than P30 million in assets will receive P308.50.

Agricultural workers in plantations will get P286 daily wage, and non-plantation workers, P270.

Workers in hospitals with a capacity of 20 beds will receive P307, and those in smaller hospitals, P292.

In retail and service establishments with 16 or more workers, wage earners are entitled to P305, and those in firms with less than 16 personnel, P291.

Handicraft and cottage industry workers are now entitled to the P270 minimum wage.

In Aurora, non-agricultural workers are entitled to a P265 minimum daily wage; plantation workers, P250; and non-plantation workers, P230.

Retail and service firms with no more than 10 workers should pay their workers P187 daily, while those employed in the cottage industry and handicraft sector are entitled to P238.

The wage order, according to the wage board, is based on eight working hours per day even as “all workers paid by results, including those who are paid on piecework, takay, pakyaw or task basis shall be entitled to receive the prescribed increase in this order per eight hours a day, or a proportion thereof for working less than eight hours.”

“The minimum wage rate of apprentices and learners shall in no case be less than 75 percent of the prescribed minimum wage rate,” it added.

The new wage order also provided room for exemption, including retail and service establishments employing not more than 10 workers at the time of the publication of the wage order.

Companies can also file for exemption if they could be classified as “distressed establishments” under the law, or are “garment exporting firms, including indirect exporters with at least 50 percent export sales and with forward contracts with their foreign buyers or principals entered into on or 12 months before the effectivity of this wage order.”