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METRO
Manila’s Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity
Board (RTWPB) completed on Monday its deliberations on
the P75 wage petition by the Trade Union Congress of the
Philippines (TUCP), decreeing a P12 increase in their
daily take-home pay. Organized labor quickly denounced
the amount as “measly,” and accused the government of
colluding with employers.
Aside
from the wage increase, the board also agreed to
integrate the existing P50 cost-of-living allowance
(Cola) into workers’ basic pay. The integrated Cola
would now be included in the computation of workers’
overtime pay and bonuses.
The new
wage adjustment gives National Capital Region workers a
total of P362 in daily pay.
Labor
Secretary Arturo Brion confirmed that a wage order has
been approved. Later in the day, the board released a
copy of Wage Order No. NCR 13.
“I was
told there’ll be a P12 increase plus the integration of
the existing P50 Cola to the basic pay,” Brion said in
an interview. Wage Order No. 13 takes effect 15 days
after its publication in a newspaper of general
circulation.
Organized labor, however, is unhappy with the outcome.
“Once again, employers and government colluded to
railroad a measly amount of a P12 minimum- wage
increase. And like previous wage orders, it would be
replete with rules for exemptions that would
automatically prevent 90 percent of wage earners from
enjoying any wage adjustment,” said Joshua Mata,
secretary- general of the Alliance of Progressive Labor,
when called for a reaction.
Last
year, the board approved a P25 wage increase for Metro
Manila minimum-wage earners that took effect on July
10. After a year, another petition for wage adjustment
can be filed per labor rules.
The
tripartite board is composed of representatives from
government, employers and labor.
The TUCP
filed the petition on April this year, citing the rising
cost of fuel and the need to strengthen consumers’
purchasing power in seeking for a wage hike.
As
expected, the militant Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) called
the new salary adjustment “miniscule and deceiving,”
adding that this will hardly help workers cope with
rising prices of commodities.
“It will
not make any dent in the poverty-stricken condition of
Filipinos. With P12, families are forced to choose with
either buying a can of sardine or half a kilo of rice,
because that is all it can buy,” said Elmer Labog, KMU’s
national chairman.
Labog
called on other labor unions to unite and push for the
revival of the P125 legislated across-the-board wage
increase that nearly made it in the 13th Congress.
Click here for full text
of W.O.13
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