EDITORIAL - Salary increase

A request for another round of salary increase has been filed before the regional wage board last Friday. In its petition, the Living Wage Coalition-Cebu asked for a P132 adjustment in the daily minimum wage in Central Visayas due to what it claimed as crippling purchasing power of workers.

Signed by at least 22 labor union representatives, the petition was earlier postponed in order for the coalition to come up with 50 signatories. But others did not sign as they have been also preparing for their own petitions.

As expected, the business sector has shot down any move for a wage hike.  Philip Tan, president of the Mandaue Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the petition was a preemptive move considering the government's last wage hike grant was only on December 7, 2012.

Under the law, no petition can be filed within a year from the last implementation of a salary increase unless there are supervening conditions. But as far as the current situation is concerned, the business sector has claimed that any supervening condition remains to be deliberated upon.

Since the petition has already been filed, it will certainly undergo a thorough screening at the wage board. And whether the board sees any supervening conditions that would merit a wage hike remains to be seen.

If the country's vaunted economic growth would serve as a supervening condition, wage earners would certainly have a reason to call for a wage increase. Their petition would definitely be valid in this time when the favorable business climate has been attracting foreign investors.

However, in this country, economic growth numbers would sadly remain just numbers because of the government's failure to translate them into real development. Just because the country is enjoying unprecedented growth doesn't surely mean the workers are the real winners.

Now that the petition has been filed, it's the wage board's call to determine whether there's enough basis to grant another round of salary increase.