Fixed pay, incentives eyed for bus drivers

Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) Chairman Francis Tolentino has lauded the recommendations of an interagency committee that looked into the working conditions of passenger bus drivers and conductors following an accident involving two buses that left a state university professor dead in May.

The panel, headed by the Department of Labor and Employment, earlier resolved that the wages of commuter bus workers would be “part-fixed and part-performance based,” a compromise that upheld the MMDA’s contention regarding accidents involving public utility vehicles, according to Tolentino.

Lack of income security

“The series of consultations and discussions with the industry players validated our opinion that the risk-taking behavior of drivers has something to do with the lack of income security because of the commission-based compensation scheme employed by bus operators,” he said in a statement.

Under the proposed guidelines, which Tolentino said would be included in a wage order to be issued by the labor department, the fixed component of a bus driver’s salary should not be lower than the prevailing minimum wage level in a region.

The performance-based component, on the other hand, would be determined by safety parameters like the number of “road accidents and traffic violations, company revenues and other parameters of performance or productivity.”

Tolentino said it was high time to implement changes in the commission-based wage of drivers and conductors whom operators “should not [exploit].”

Under the present system, passenger bus drivers do not draw a regular salary but earn on a commission basis.