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MANILA, Philippines — The P40 daily minimum wage hike in Metro Manila is ‘too little and too late’, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) said on Friday.
TUCP Vice President Luis Corral said in a statement that the “paltry” increase is myopic, as it fails to compensate the high inflation numbers, or the rise in prices of goods.
“After a very long wait for much-needed relief from the skyrocketing cost of basic goods and services, the paltry P40 increase in the NCR daily minimum wage amounts to almost nothing. It is not even half of the P88 already lost to inflation from the purchasing power of the current P570 NCR daily minimum wage,” he said.
“To justify and assert that P40 is enough since the daily minimum wage should be a mere safety net and different from a living wage is atrocious in the face of the daily struggle to merely survive,” he added.
Corral pointed out that deciding to give P40 as a wage hike is also a way of saying that households must disregard minimum monetary standards set by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) to achieve healthy food requirements daily.
“Giving a paltry 40 pesos increase is akin to saying that the daily minimum wage should not be based on the Department of Science and Technology’s Pinggang Pinoy daily healthy food requirements for a family of five, which as per computation, amounts to P917.50,” he said.
“This shared myopic perspective of both the DOLE and employer of the concept of the daily minimum wage as a safety net, should be revised and reformed. It has no place under the modern and modernizing vision of the Marcos Administration,” he added.
On Thursday, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) announced that the wage board in Metro Manila approved a P40 minimum wage increase for workers in private establishments.
This would bring the daily minimum wage of workers in the non-agriculture sector from P570 to P610, and from P533 to P573 for the agriculture sector, service and retail establishments employing 15 or less workers, and manufacturing establishments regularly employing less than 10 workers.