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THE
tripartite regional wage boards have started
consultations for the petitions for minimum-wage
increase amid signs from the employers’ sector that it
is backtracking from earlier pronouncements supporting
President Arroyo’s call for an increase in workers’
daily pay.
Ciriaco
Lagunzad III, National Wages and Productivity Commission
(NWPC) executive director, said they have also set the
formal public hearing for the wage-increase petition in
Metro Manila on May 10. The consultations, he said, are
informal discussions with the different stakeholders.
Today,
Lagunzad said the NWPC, the policymaking body that
oversees all the regional wage boards, will again
convene to affirm the existence of “supervening
conditions” in four other regions. The declaration of
such conditions would justify the exemption to the rule
that no new wage-hike petitions would be entertained
within one year after a previous request is granted.
A source
from the NWPC said that at the special meeting of the
agency on April 22, the employers’ sector showed signs
of their changing sentiment after its two
representatives in the commission voted against a
resolution declaring the existence of “supervening
conditions” in Metro Manila.
Under
the law, the regional wage boards cannot act on any
petition for a wage hike within12 months from the
issuance of the previous wage order unless there are
supervening conditions such as the extraordinary
increase in the prices of petroleum and basic goods and
services.
Since
the last wage order in Metro Manila was released in
August 2007, the source said the petition of the Trade
Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) for an P80
minimum- wage hike cannot be heard by the wage board
unless the NWPC first affirms the existence of
supervening conditions.
At the
April 22 meeting called specifically for this purpose,
the source said employers’ representative Francisco
Floro and Eduardo Rondain voted against the resolution.
It was still carried, however, because the two labor
representatives and Lagunzad voted for it.
The
representatives from the Neda and the Department of
Labor and Employment did not vote.
The
source said the action of Floro and Rondain indicates
that the employers are now having a change of heart and
would be backtracking from statements made by Employers
Confederation of Philippines (Ecop) president Sergio
Ortiz-Luis at an earlier meeting in Malacañang that they
support a wage hike given the current situation.
“If they
are opposing the declaration of the supervening
conditions, in effect, they are also opposed to the wage
hike,” the source said.
Ortiz-Luis said they opposed the resolution because the
current 6-percent inflation rate is still not enough
basis to declare it.
“It
should be at least 10 percent. Nevertheless we are
sitting down with them,” he said.
Ortiz-Luis said Ecop, recognized by the NWPC as the
voice of the business sector in wage deliberations, will
not submit a number as a “counteroffer” to TUCP’s P80
petition.
Instead,
they will wait instead for the numbers to be arrived at
by the wage board before making a position.
The
National Labor Union said Ecop’s decision not to make an
offer shows the real position of the employers on the
issue.
“Last
time we checked, they were in Malacañang telling the
whole world that employers are ready to give workers an
increase in pay with the rising cost of living. Now,
back to their senses, they cannot even make an offer,”
the group said.
Meanwhile, in
Davao City, the local
business chamber said pushing with labor’s demand for at
least P80 in additional daily wage “could kill the
country’s biggest employers today.”
Simeon
Marfori II, president of the Davao City Chamber of
Commerce and Industry (DCCCI), said, “We can always do
palliative measures—give wage increase, give this, give
that—but then, businesses will die.”
To
insist that P80 be added to the minimum wage, currently
at P250 in the Davao Region, “is a huge jump, about 30
percent, and remember that a lot of us are the small and
medium businesses who would be most likely to be put out
of business,” said Marfori.
The
DCCCI has more than 300 members, “mostly SMEs,
comprising about 99 percent.”
“In
fact, the business sector is the one who hires the most
number of Filipinos, and a wage increase this big would
kill fastest the SMEs which hire the most number of
workers,” he said.
Stressing that teachers and their families are reeling
from the steep increase in the cost of living, the
Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) on Monday renewed
its call for the grant of a P3,000 across-the-board
salary increase for the nearly half-million
public-school teachers.
Antonio
Tinio, ACT chairman, said the salary increase would help
teachers overcome the rising price of rice and
electricity.
Tinio
pointed out that the current public-school teacher’s
salary of P10,933 falls far below the family living wage
of P858 per day for a family of six in the National
Capital Region as of March 2008, as determined by the
National Wages and Productivity Commission.
“For
teachers in the private sector, we support the call for
a legislated P 125-increase in the minimum wage,” he
added.
Meanwhile, the Teachers’ Dignity Coalition (TDC) asked
Malacañang and Congress to expedite the legislation of
the teachers’ salary upgrading bill amid talks on wage
increases in the private sector.
“Teachers are in the same condition as the private
sector workers. We are both victimized by the rising
prices of basic commodities and our meager salary,” said
Benjo Basas, a
Caloocan
City
teacher and TDC’s national chairman. (With C. Mocon, M.
Cayon) |
