Labor hits P20 wage hike offer

A labor group has slammed as “an insult to hardworking Filipinos” the P20 wage offer by employers.

Partido Manggagawa (PM) said the proposed wage increase would not make a dent in the group’s estimate of the daily cost of living of P1,300.

A cost of living survey conducted by PM in May found that a family of five in the National Capital Region needed P1,300 a day, or P39,000 a month, to live decently.

PM chair Renato Magtubo dismissed the regional wage board hearings as a “moro-moro” after Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello and the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (Ecop) reportedly agreed on the P20 “alms to workers.”

The wage boards are composed of three representatives from the government, two from employers and two from labor.

Below inflation rates

“Wage regionalization has been weaponized in the employers’ war to cheapen wages and increase profits. An evaluation of the policy performance of wage regionalization that started in 1989 will show that it has consistently resulted in measly salary hikes that are below inflation rates and disregards economic growth,” Magtubo said.

Meanwhile, the Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP) said it would insist on a P334 wage increase for workers in Metro Manila.

“The P20 being proffered by Ecop is unacceptable particularly at this point when prices are high and the buying power of wage is falling. Such a measly wage increase won’t uplift millions of minimum waged workers in Metro Manila who now live below poverty,” said ALU-TUCP spokesperson Alan Tanjusay. —TINA G. SANTOS