The wage increase announced by the NCR Regional Wage Board for Metro Manila fails the test of the current survival needs needed by workers and their families. It is not a wage increase in real terms and falls far short of addressing the lost value of NCR wages in the face of the spiraling prices of basic goods, according to wage petitioner, Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP).
“The board in concert with the backdoor guidance of the economic managers continue to depress worker wages in the face of rising hunger caused by extraordinary inflation largely attributable to both the gross incompetence and governance failures of the economic managers,” the ALU_TUCP said in a statement.
Government representatives and employers’ representatives again outvoted the workers representatives in the board by keeping any increase to a bare minimum to ensure cheap labor to attract investors and keep employer profit margins up in complete and utter disregard of the suffering and sacrifice of workers in building up our GDP.
The board has once again failed its mandate to strike a balance between labor and capital by depressing wages. The Board is acting on the long disproven myth that there economic benefits will trickle down to workers. With low wages the only thing that will trickle down will continue to be inflation. The wage order comes after 2 weeks of lowered petroleum prices and an announced decrease in LPG prices. We believe that this window-dressing of our dire economic straights is largely stage-managed by the economic managers with the oil cartel to mollify consumers and workers, ALU-TUCP spokesperson Alan Tanjusay said.
With oil at 87$/barrel and rising, we warn that this brief respite in oil prices will be temporary and will soon be followed by even higher spikes in petroleum prices.
We will carefully assess whether we will appeal the decision if only to demonstrate the bankruptcy of the RTWPB process, or file a new December -January wage petition once inflation continues upward and renew the all-labor campaign for a Congressional wage bill to once and for all correct the low wage policy intended to keep our workers hungry and oppressed by employer immunity,” Tanjusay said.
On his part, ALU-TUCP Vice President Louie Corral said: “We are warning our social partners, government and employers, that hunger and poverty will only escalate and this will cause more instability from the labor front. We are now telling you that labor groups will file for another wage increase as inflation will continue to rise.
We warn our government that supervening events will continue to push down workers below threshold and the call for wage increase will only escalate further. Unfortunately with this wage order instead of a realistic intervention to workers’ plight the P25 will only prolong the instability. It will be now much more chaotic as the DOLE push the workers to go on an offensive at the enterprise level and we know there will be intense Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) negotiations all around even of labor density remains low, Corral said.
DOLE in effect is encouraging a protracted struggle for wage increase in the same way they created a protected struggle in the matter of ending contractualization. And now just like Pontius Pilate, the DOLE is washing its hands and letting the workers and employers square off at their respective enterprises. With this unjust P25 wage hike, the DOLE is looking at more strikes. More labor rights violations and strike violence where we fear that the PNP and AFP maybe transformed as employers’ goons Congratulations to the DOLE, you have pushed back our country to the dark ages, Corral said.
