Hasten wage bills, labor groups urge Congress
COMPOSITE IMAGE: JEROME CRISTOBAL FROM PDI, REUTERS, INQ FILE PHOTOS
MANILA, Philippines — Labor groups urged Congress over the weekend to hasten the passage of a “critical” law increasing wages and easing wage erosion brought about by inflation.
“We applaud this initiative from the House of Representatives and the Senate,” said nurse Manuel Payao, president of the University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Center Employees Union.
There are at least 58 bills in the House of Representatives and 21 in the Senate seeking to implement wage hikes.
“The abundance of wage hike bills filed in both chambers of Congress indicates that the measure enjoys strong support from our lawmakers,” said teacher Vladimer Quetua, chair of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT).
The two labor leaders praised Congress after Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri said that the Senate labor committee approved in principle a legislated increase in minimum wages because inflation was eroding, instead of growing, real wages.
“Despite the soaring inflation, the Regional Wages and Productivity Boards are constrained by law as they can only come out with a new wage order once every year unless they declare supervening conditions due to unusual economic incidents,” Zubiri said in his own wage bill.
Congressional leaders have not specified what a bicameral wage law would provide, but both Zubiri and Speaker Martin Romuldez said they would pass the legislation before the end of the second regular session next May.75% hike for gov’t nurses
The Federation of Free Workers (FFW) urged the House of Representatives to swiftly approve a bill, filed by Quezon City Rep. Marvin Rillo, to increase government nurses’ entry-level wages from P36,619 to P63,997.
A similar bill has been filed in the Senate by Sen. Risa Hontiveros, according to FFW, which has several hospital unions across the country as members.
The proposed 75 percent wage increase would bring the entry-level wages of government nurses six notches higher to Salary Grade 21 under the Salary Standardization Law, according to Tiffany Ong, union president of Iloilo Mission Hospital Employees Union-FFW.ACT, on the other hand, asked the Senate to prioritize wage hikes for government workers.
Based on ACT’s monitoring, a total of 21 bills related to pay hikes are pending in the upper house, while seven of these are focused on the salary upgrade for public school teachers.
