Bill pushing for P150 increase in private workers’ daily wages filed in House

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MANILA, Philippines — A bill that seeks to implement an across-the-board increase in the daily wages of private sector workers has been filed before the House of Representatives.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) confirmed that Deputy Speaker Raymond Democrito Mendoza had filed House Bill No. 7871, or the proposed Wage Recovery Act of 2023.

Mendoza is representative of the TUCP party-list.

Under Mendoza’s bill, employees in the private sector, regardless of their industry being agricultural or non-agricultural, would be entitled to a P150 per day increase without prejudice to the future increases through the respective Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board.

“Amid the triple whammy of stubbornly high inflation, poor job quality, and lack of new and decent jobs, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) sees the need to file a legislated wage hike as a much-needed wage recovery effort for the eroded purchasing power of the wages of workers and employees in the private sector across the regions,” Mendoza said.

“We believe that this is an urgent actionable and reasonable course of action to take through legislation, in cognizance of our current predicament where all — including workers as well as business — are badly hit by the surging and roller coaster ride of inflation and are still suffering through four crises of survival: COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, looming global recession, and climate change concerns,” he added.

Mendoza noted that while inflation has eased down, it is undeniable that prices of goods and services remain high, hitting headline inflation rates of 8.6 percent in February 2023, and 7.6 percent in March 2023.

READ: Philippines’ inflation slowed to 8.6% in Feb 

READ: Philippine inflation eased to 7.6% in March 

“Filipino workers are becoming a class of the permanently poor, struggling every day to eke out their bare necessities with household spending gravely impacted by wages real value continues to decrease due to the stubbornly high inflation,” Mendoza said.

“That is why this representation filed this ‘Wage Recovery Act of 2023’ that seeks to provide a legislated across-the-board wage recovery increase of P150 in the daily wages of workers and employees in the private sector across the regions. It aims to recover the purchasing power of current wages lost to high inflation and to supplement for the 34 years that there was no substantial wage increase since the regional daily minimum wage determination mechanism was established in 1989,” he added.

Mendoza’s bill, however, is not the first of its kind in the 19th Congress: last March 13, the House’s Makabayan bloc filed House Bill No. 7568, which calls for a P750 across-the-board hike in the daily wages of employees, amid the still-high prices of basic commodities.

The said bill was forwarded by the Committee on Rules to the Committee on Labor and employment last March 15.  It has been pending, however, at the same committee.

READ: House bill seeks P750 pay hike for private sector workers 

JPV/abc