Lowly government workers claim pay hike only benefits managers

The salary increase next month for government workers is of little help, especially to lower level employees, All UP Workers Union national president Felix Pariñas said Tuesday.

“The Salary Standardization Law (SSL) 3 will benefit mostly those having the salary grades of managers and above. But not us,” he said in a phone interview.

The union official said the SSL’s pay increases would depend on one’s salary—those with higher salaries get higher pay adjustments and vice versa.

Parinas said President Benigno Aquino III’s announcement on giving the P2.7-billion pay increase in June instead of July was an attempt at making the President look good.

In his Labor Day speech, Mr. Aquino said the salary increase for government employees was aimed at helping parents pay for their children’s tuition.

However, government employees said they could hardly feel the salary raise due to soaring prices of consumer goods.

Jeffrey Villanueva, a Quezon City traffic enforcer, said he was expecting a P500 increase to his P9,000 monthly pay.

But his coworker, Nilo Miravalles, said his two children were unable to finish their studies because his income was not enough to pay for their education.

Contractual for 23 years

Miravalles has been working as a traffic enforcer for 23 years now, but he is still a contractual employee, who renews his contract every six months.

Fidel Peña, another contractual traffic officer, has been in the service for 25 years now.

“In our office, the connection system prevails,” Peña said. “If you have connections, you would immediately become a regular employee, like the others.”

Mr. Aquino said in his speech that the government would hire an additional 372 labor inspectors to strictly enforce labor laws, including the regularization of employees.

He even referred to the contractualization schemes of employers as “5-5-5” and “6-6-6,” referring to the renewal of employment contract every five or six months.

This is the employers’ way to avoid the responsibility of granting additional benefits to regular employees. Reports from Julie M. Aurelio and Daphne J. Magturo, trainee