NCR wage board eyes decision on pay hike pleas next week
MANILA, Philippines — The National Capital Region (NCR) wage board began, on Monday, its public hearings on the proposed minimum wage hike in the capital.
Raymundo Agravante, chairman of the NCR wage board, said they would like to have a decision by next week after President Aquino on Labor Day ordered wage boards to hasten their proceedings.
“We’ve calendared that. It has long been set by the board to issue the wage order next week,” Agravante said.
However, he said that everyone would have to wait for the public hearings to see if a wage order could come out by next week.
“Let us first see what will happen in our public hearing,” Agravante said.
Labor officials earlier said that the Metro Manila wage board could come out with its ruling by the middle of the month.
The capital’s wage board is hearing the petition of the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) for a P75 hike in Metro Manila’s daily minimum wage.
The minimum wage in the NCR was last raised in July 2010, when the wage board issued a P22 increase to bring the wage to P404.
The Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) urged the Metro Manila regional wage board to immediately grant the P75 wage hike petition.
“We ask the wage board to break expectations and approve the P75 petition since our study reveals that the cost of living for a family of six in Metro Manila as of March this year is already P1,010 a day,” said Renato Magtubo, PM national chair.
He also criticized President Benigno Aquino III for not giving workers even non-wage benefits on Labor Day.
“Private sector workers got nada from PNoy (Aquino). PNoy did not really break bread with labor but he broke tradition by giving nothing to workers, not even a consuelo de bobo (fool’s consolation) of non-wage benefits,” Magtubo said.
“Even if the NCR wage board approves the P75 petition, it will not be enough to bridge the huge gap between the minimum wage and the cost of living. The disparity between the P404 minimum wage and the cost of living is P606 or 150 percent of the ordinary wage,” he said.
“Even if two members work—which is the buy one, take one policy of the government—then their combined income will not be enough to feed the entire family,” Magtubo added.
He said the PM arrived at its cost of living figure using its April 2010 survey of the daily cost of living and the National Statistics Office’s 2.6 percent estimate of the inflation rate from April 2010 to March 2011.
“Our estimate is already an understatement since the rise in prices has been accelerating since March,” Magtubo said.
Members of the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) held a rally at the Department of Labor and Employment office in Intramuros, Manila and called for the immediate abolition of regional wage boards (RWBs).
The group said that in the two decade-existence of the RWBs so far, “no meaningful and substantial wage hikes were implemented.”
“The RWB is a major hindrance why the realization of the growing clamor for a P125 wage hike remains elusive. Through the RWB, PNoy has excuse why it can’t implement a P125 wage increase despite rising cost of oil, petroleum products, food and other basic commodities and services,” says Roy Velez, KMU National Capital Region chair.
“It is indeed illogical why there is a need for RWB, which only regionalizes wage increases. Do the hunger and poverty felt by workers and their families here in Metro Manila differ with those in other regions in the Philippines? Clearly, RWBs only worsen the cheap and docile labor state in the country,” he added.
