Companies told: Don’t delay 13th-month pay

Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III on Tuesday urged employers to distribute their employees’ 13th-month pay on time.

Bello said employers must pay their workers’ 13th-month pay not later than December 24, 2016.

“All employers are required to pay their rank-and-file employees the 13thmonth pay, regardless of the nature of their employment, and irrespective of the methods by which their wages are paid, provided they worked for at least one month in a year,” Bello said in a statement.

Labor laws and their implementing rules and regulations mandate the payment of 13th-month pay.

“The 13th-month pay is a labor standard provision of the law that the DOLE does not compromise as to its payment. And employers are duty-bound under the law to report their compliance with this worker benefit,” Bello said.

Under the Labor Code, every covered employer is required to make a report of compliance to the nearest DOLE regional office not later than 15 January of each year.

“Good labor-management relations, increased workers’ and enterprises’ productivity and competiveness result to workers being paid what is due them,” Bello said.

The 13th-month pay is defined to mean 1/12 of the basic salary of an employee within a calendar year. The basic salary includes all remunerations or earnings paid by an employer to an employee for services rendered, but may not include cost-of-living allowances (COLA), profit-sharing payments, cash equivalents of unused vacation and sick leave credits, overtime pay, premium pay, night shift differential pay, holiday pay, and all allowances and monetary benefits which are not considered, or integrated as part of the regular or basic salary of the employee.

Employers failing to pay the 13th-month benefit are liable to money claim cases that aggrieved employees may file with any DOLE regional offices, Bello said./rga

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