Wednesday, June 25, 2025

WORKERS TO FIGHT HARDER IN THE 20TH CONGRESS FOR A LEGISLATED WAGE HIKE: TULOY ANG LABAN PARA SA DAAN-DAANG UMENTO SA KONGRESO—HINDI BARYA-BARYANG UMENTO MULA SA BULOK NA REGIONAL WAGE BOARDS!



The National Wage Coalition, composed of BMP, KMU, NAGKAISA!, and TUCP, vows to continue, with even greater resolve, the historic fight for the first-ever legislated wage hike in nearly four decades in the 20th Congress. Workers will not back down from the failure of the 19th Congress to convene the bicameral conference to reconcile and finalize an enrolled wage hike bill. Stronger and wiser, workers together with their families will continue to march forward in calling on every legislator in the House of Representatives and in the Senate to refile and pass the legislated wage hike bill as their first and foremost priority measure as they reaffirm their rhetoric of support and commitment for its swiftest passage in the 20th Congress. This is supported by the May 2025 Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey that confirms what we have long known: 92% of Filipinos want the Senate to prioritize a minimum wage hike; 95% demand the same from the House. This is not only an overwhelming public clamor but a national consensus for wage justice.

Palace Press Officer Claire Castro has reiterated that President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos, Jr. is not against wage hikes because these will benefit workers. But this Administration must walk the talk: certify the legislated wage hike as urgent and include it among the priority measures of the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) because this is the raise that our nation and our people long demand and deserve—not the too little, too late, and certainly always unjust and unfair yearly wage increases from the regional wage boards. Their wage orders are a mere pittance insulting and condemning workers with not even enough to feed their families nutritious food, send their children to school, access medical help, or afford decent housing. And now, with oil prices surging due to global geopolitical conflicts, the cost of nearly every basic necessity is set to soar even higher. Standing for the legislated wage hike is not only good politics because it is good public service—it is a social, economic, and moral imperative.

For 36 long years, over five million minimum wage earners have been deprived of their Constitutional right to a living wage, entrusting their survival to the mercy of obsolete, failed, and broken regional wage boards which, by regularly handing out token scraps and crumbs to workers like spare change thrown to beggars, have inculcated helplessness and hopelessness among our people, conditioning them to accept by hook or by crook, sometimes even with gratefulness, any ‘barya-barya’ wage adjustment because it is better than nothing at all. Yet, both employers groups and the economic managers of our Government still perpetuate this systemic exploitation, serving the interest of overflowing greed, obscene profits, and an oppressive status quo designed primarily to favor the richest to be even richer, leaving workers not only with empty promises but empty plates. Their fake tales and scare tactics that the legislated wage hike will kill jobs, destroy businesses, and crash the economy have been heard, debunked, and buried not only by academics, economists, civil society, informal workers, and minimum wage earners but by the House and the Senate which, after years of exhaustive deliberations and debates, passed their respective wage hike bills.

With more time, and no more excuses, as well as greater unity and political action, workers across the nation will further organize and mobilize to reach out the countless unorganized workers paid even below the minimum, escalate the struggle with more allies and champions inside and outside of Congress, and carry out this movement of resistance and righteous anger: TULOY ANG LABAN. DAANG-DAANG DAGDAG-SAHOD ANG PANAWAGAN.HINDI BARYA-BARYA! HINDI SA SUSUNOD NA TAON—KUNDI NGAYON!

Sunday, June 8, 2025

TUCP URGES SENATE FOR EXPEDITED BICAM & ENDORSEMENT FOR A WAGE LAW IN PBBM SONA




The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) calls on the Senate for an expedited bicameral conference, ratification, and endorsement for the signing of the wage hike bill before the 19th Congress ends so President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos will have something truly meaningful to uplift the lives of Filipino workers in his July 2025 State of the Nation Address (SONA).

“We are eager to work urgently with our Senate counterparts to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the wage hike bills—₱200 and ₱100 respectively—and ratify the final version on the same day.  We fervently urge Senate President Francis ‘Chiz’ Escudero and Senate Labor Committee chaired by Sen. Joel Villanueva to not deny the workers this much needed reprieve and to not succumb to the lazy economics of marketing the Philippines as a haven for cheap, unorganized labor to investors in ensuring their profitability instead of addressing the bigger business problems of high power costs, corruption, and ease of doing business,” stated TUCP Party-list Representative and House Deputy Speaker Raymond Democrito C. Mendoza, who will serve as one of the House bicam conferees.

Before the resumption of session, Senate President Escudero stressed the urgent need to pass priority legislation before the 19th Congress ends. 

“No other single piece of legislation today would more directly improve the lives of Filipino working families than a legislated wage hike—be it ₱100, ₱200, or a middle ground of ₱150. We remind all social partners that the Senate and the House passed their respective bills without a "NO" vote. We trust, hope, and pray that this rare opportunity—transcending toxic political partisanship and cutting through the fear-mongering of elite employer groups and big business—will carry the day in the bicameral conference, leading to the swift ratification of the final wage increase as early as possible,” urged Mendoza. 

The May 2025 Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey found that 92% of Filipinos believe the Senate should prioritize increasing the minimum wage, while 95% said the same for the House, underscoring the overwhelming public clamor for a legislated wage hike. 

“No amount of tired, baseless scare tactics by big business—who shamelessly invoke MSMEs and workers in the informal economy as their human shields to protect their obscene profits—can silence this groundswell of support for the first-ever legislated wage hike in 39 years. This wage increase bill is the result of years of exhaustive public hearings and deliberations in Congress wherein economists, academics, civil society groups, informal workers, and minimum wage earners themselves testified to the imperative of raising workers' wages now primarily to lift over five million minimum wage earners out of poverty. Big businesses' unsubstantiated and deceptive doomsday scenarios of massive inflation, unemployment, and business closures supposedly due to a wage increase have been debunked and refuted time and time again in these hearings. In truth, higher minimum wages drive inclusive growth by boosting consumption, which in turn fuels business activity and creates more and better jobs for all,” explained Mendoza. 

IBON Foundation, based on the largest survey of business establishments in the country, found out that a ₱200 wage hike would only account for 9–15% of annual business profits—from micro to large firms. We must not forget that there are existing wage exemptions already in place for Barangay Micro Business Enterprises (BMBEs), and billions in tax cuts and financial incentives already granted to corporations and MSMEs under laws like CREATE and CREATE MORE. Also, just like the Christmas bonuses and 13th month pay that boost consumer spending every year, minimum wage earners are more likely to spend the wage increase in the informal economy such as in carinderias, jeepney fares, market vendor sales, and sari-sari store essentials, hence raising the income of the informal economy. 

“There is no grandstanding involved by doing our duty as representatives of the people and responding to their plea for a wage increase now. With due respect, it is not Congress but certain employer groups, big business, and armchair pundits who are being myopic and self-serving, doing a verbal overkill against the wage bill. The real threat to businesses and jobs is not the national wage increase bill but the insanity of keeping workers too poor, too sickly, and keeping their children hungry, through  the broken regional wage boards that institutionalize the cheap labor policy. We have been in this situation for over three decades since the passing of the regionalization of wage fixing, and it has only proved a disastrous failure: workers trapped in intergenerational poverty with the so-called investments bonanza failing to materialize,” said Mendoza.

“We trust that President Marcos sees the legislated wage bill as mutually beneficial to workers, businesses, and the economy.  The conventional wisdom being bandied around by some economists that higher minimum wages lead to lower employment has long been discarded as Nobel Laureates in Economics have established that higher minimum wages do not destroy jobs because they are not just a cost - they are an investment to boost demand and stimulate growth as it fuels more spending and creates more and better jobs.  If we are to create a "Bagong Pilipinas," let us discontinue the practice of selling dirt cheap productive labor because it does not work anymore.  The 36 years of regional wage fixing failed miserably.  It mainly placed workers below the poverty threshold and no investment growth was triggered outside the developed regions.  The economic managers are keenly aware that the other crucial factors for investments to enter are logistics, power costs and others. The ‘Bagong Pilipinas’ vision is incompatible with three decades long of a cheap labor policy, and the road to realizing that new Philippines begins with the pending wage hike. The legislated wage increase is the crucial first step towards a living wage for every Filipino worker,” underscored Mendoza.

Thursday, May 1, 2025

MAYO UNO 2025: NATIONAL WAGE COALITION JOINT LABOR DAY MOBILIZATION ₱200 DAGDAG SAHOD, ISABATAS!



Ngayong Araw ng Paggawa, libu-libong manggagawa mula sa iba't ibang unyon at pederasyon—TUCP, KMU, BMP, at NAGKAISA!—ay sama-samang magmamartsa patungong Mendiola upang iparinig ang iisang sigaw:

MR. PRESIDENT, CERTIFY AS URGENT!
CONGRESS, URGENT NA IPASA!
₱200 DAGDAG SAHOD, ISABATAS NA!

Tatlong taon nang walang pag-uusap sa pagitan ng Pangulo at ng kilusang paggawa. Sa harap ng nagtataasang presyo, gutom, at kahirapan, panahon na para ipasa ang kauna-unahang ₱200 legislated wage hike sa loob ng 36 na taon!

DALAWANG DAAN, ISANG BAYAN!
SAMA-SAMANG LUMALABAN ANG MANGGAGAWANG PILIPINO!

#MayoUno2025
#200WageHikeIsabatas
#NationalWageCoalition
#BosesNgManggagawa
#20TUCPPartylist 


Tuesday, April 29, 2025

Trade union urges P200 wage hike certification



At a press conference on April 29, 2025, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) called for a dialogue with the president to certify the proposed ₱200 legislated wage hike as urgent, days before the Labor Day celebration. - Analy Labor