ALU-TUCP says purchasing power of minimum wage earners goes down

A labor group laments a minimum wage earner will be unable to provide the basic needs of his or her family, citing the rising inflation.

Labor group wary of RTWPB-XI motu proprio wage review

The labor coalition NAGKAISA-Davao cautions workers on the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board-Region XI’s initiative to review and possibly raise the region’s minimum wage. “As in the past wage orders, the RTWPB-XI’s evaluation is most likely to end up giving loose change to workers,” said Sofriano “Ka Ondo” Mataro, spokesperson of Nagkaisa-Davao and regional head of ALU-TUCP.

TUCP has petitioned the regional wage board for a P104.00 across-the-board increase but the latter said that it has already initiated a motu proprio review of the existing minimum wage in the region in its meeting on January 17, 2018.

“We doubt that the wage review of RTWPB-XI is not prompted by DOLE Secretary Bello, who seems to be working in cahoots with the employers on the issue of contractualization. If not with TUCP’s petition in late March, we would not know that the regional wage board has taken the initiative to take a look at workers’ wages since January”, stated Joel Bañas, spokesperson and Chairperson of SENTRO Davao.

He further explained, “It’s already three months now and no labor group have been consulted and no public hearings were called to discuss the matter. If the regional wage board is talking to some groups, it is not the workers but the employers. Is the right of workers to be heard doesn’t matter nowadays?”

“Agravante said that the wage board has undertaken studies on the region’s economic conditions including the effects of the TRAIN Law, where are the results of these much-vaunted studies? What are its findings?” asks Remy Torres, spokesperson of Partido ng Manggagawa (PM).

Remy Torres is referring to Raymundo Agravante, chairperson of RTWPB-XI and the regional director of the Department of Labor and Employment-Region XI.

“We need to raise workmen’s wages. The P104.00 petition of TUCP is not even enough to recover the lost purchasing power of the regional wage which is P132.70”, asserted Ka Ondo, spokesperson of the group and a convenor of Nagkaisa-Davao.

According to the website of NWPC (National Wages and Productivity Commission), the real value of the region’s minmum wage of P340.00 is a measly P207.30. ” And these figures are as of February 9, 2018. The impact of the excise and value-added taxes under the TRAIN Law is still not factored in”, he added.

The labor coalition alleged that workers are staggering from the effects of the TRAIN Law which inflated prices of basic commodities. The Philippine Statistics Authority confirmed this in an announcement recently that inflation in March 2018 surged to 4.3%.

The law lists ten criteria on which the wage board would base its decision in fixing wages. Among them were the rise in the cost of living, the purchasing power of the peso and workers’ demand for a raise. But Joel Bañas of SENTRO Davao claims, “Since its creation thirty years ago, the regional wage boards has only one consideration on issuing wage orders, which is the employers’ capacity to pay, forsaking the workers’ capacity to buy.”

Labor groups seek wage hike

Rappler file photo

The country’s biggest labor group will file a petition for a substantial across-the-board wage increase for the more than six million minimum wage earners in Metro Manila (National Capital Region) and in other regions.

The Associated Labor Union-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP), through spokesman Alan Tanjuay, disclosed on Sunday the group, along with six other labor organizations, has filed separate across-the-board wage hike, ranging from P120 to P155.80 across-the-board for workers in Central Visayas.

Director Cyril Ticao, chairman of the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board (RTWPB) in Cebu, has confirmed that a P155.80 across-the-board daily wage adjustment petition was collectively filed by the Cebu Labor Coalition, Lonbisco Employees Organization (LEO), Metaphil Workers Union, NUWHRAIN-Montebello Chapter, NLM-Katipunan, and the Union Bank Employees Association (UBEA).

The ALU-TUCP, on the other hand, separately filed for a P120 across-the-board daily wage hike.

All petitions, Ticao said, have to be formally presented to the Wage Board in a public hearing, which is a requirement in fixing wages.

Tanjusay said ALU-TUCP would also soon be filing a wage increase petition before the National Capital Region-RTWPB as soon as the group finishes its ongoing study on the inflationary effect of the TRAIN law.

“We are studying well the inflation rate brought about by the natural law of supply and demand and the inflation caused by TRAIN. The amount will be definitely substantial, regardless of whether they will grant it or not,” Tanjusay said.

He said the purchasing power of wages moved downwards by 6 percent from January to February upon the effectivity of the Tax Reform Inclusion and Acceleration (TRAIN) law.

He added that in Metro Manila, which has the highest minimum wage, the buying power of P512 daily minimum pay fell to P357.29, while the real value or purchasing power of the country’s lowest minimum pay of P265 a day in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao is now P152.12 a day.

As of March 1, the total purchasing power of workers for a month fell to P8,575. However, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority, the published standard amount needed by a family of five to survive within poverty line in 2015 was P9,064.

The last wage increase amounting to P21 per day was granted to minimum wage earners in Metro Manila on October 5, 2017.

Tanjusay said ALU-TUCP could simultaneously file petitions either through the 17 regional wage boards or through an emergency legislation via the House of Representatives.

The last time workers experienced a significant wage hike was in 1989 or 29 years ago when the late President Corazon Aquino gave a P25 daily across-the-board wage increase nationwide.- BY WILLIAM DEPASUPIL, TMT

Labor hesitant about Palace Meeting sans knowledge of final EO version

“We are not sure if we will go to the meeting with the President as we don’t know which version of the Executive Order (EO) Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III is once again peddling,” Nagkaisa Labor Coalition said in a hastily called press conference following reports of a much delayed meeting with President Rodrigo Duterte happening in mid-April.

President Duterte, in a meeting with labor leaders on February 27, promised that he and his legal team will look into the workers’ draft EO submitted jointly by Nagkaisa and Kilusang Mayo Uno with the support of the National Anti-Poverty Commission. He promised to sign the issuance by March 15, to no avail.

“The truth is, the Secretary has been obstructing our efforts these past few years. He has been misleading the president and has been fooling the public by twisting labor’s position and making it appear we are unreasonable,” Nagkaisa said.

“The workers’ draft has moved from total prohibition of contractualization to a framework of prohibition of contractualization that would allow certain exemptions for contracting out of work, but subject to the decision of the National Tripartite Industrial Peace Council.” Nagkaisa added.

“We abhor the abuse and exploitation of workers through contractualization as it has become the convenient excuse of unscrupulous employers and manpower agencies and pseudo cooperatives to pay low wages, disregard social protection, bust unions and fire workers at will. We believed the President share these abhorrence with irresponsible employers,” Nagkaisa added.

Nagkaisa calls on government to decide where its policy on addressing contractualization stands. “Is it for more profits to employers at the expense of workers’ rights and welfare; or adhering to state guarantees of providing full protection to workers’ rights and welfare that would bring about sustainable growth to the economy?”

“Secretary Bello shamelessly foisted that labor is calling for the total prohibition of contractualization and deliberately misled the public and the President that workers are hardlining and demanding the impossible. He obstructed and derailed the democratic processing of an EO,” Nagkaisa added.

“He has acted beyond the pale and has shown to what depths he will unconscionably betray his sworn trust and the public interest. He must now disclose what this purported April 16 EO contains. It is something we have never seen,” said Nagkaisa.

Nagkaisa only learned about a supposed new round of meetings in Malacañang via news reports as no official invitations and meeting agenda have been received by any labor group.