by Alex Roldan
Every Labor Day spawns arguments on salary increases demanded by workers and opposed by hard-nosed employers. The bitter and constant debate haunts the whole nation, year after year.
The labor sector base their proposed wage increases on what they call “living wage” whose amount is based on what they believe is the daily financial need of a worker’s family of five members in order to survive. There are groups from the same sector who are asking salary increases that they say have considered other factors such as present economic conditions and the ability of the business to pay, thus, they also come up with their own computations and, of course, adding more confusion within the sector.
Determining how much really is the “living wage” to resolve the issue despite its complexities is tempting, but to be candid about it, no one among us knows the exact definition of such a phrase. The ambiguity of this issue does not only break the worker sector’s rank but makes the government’s effort trouble-free it comes up with what it believes is a yearly “just” wage increase.
It all depends on how you define the phrase of what a “living wage” is. But there is one thing that we all seem to agree on that may lead to settling the issue – by having a standard. Meaning a “standard of living” on which we base our computations on how much should an average Filipino family basically needs. At the moment, the phrase “standard of living” means wage based on value established by the government.
But, even then, “standard of living” can lead to confusion as this can be defined according to what people think of themselves. Therefore, even if a standard is agreed on and set, it will always jead to arguments, notwithstanding the implication that this will animate the division of the “social class” in our society. The ambivalent meaning of this phrase ironically though has caused disagreements and ill-feeling between the opposing sectors, and effectively masks, at least momentarily, the real issue of the widening gap between the social strata that saved the country from the serious repercussions of such a situation.
But should we maintain it that way to keep the country from serious troubles? I say that the government can hold on temporarily to the situation because as living conditions continue to deteriorate, it would react to a point where the conflict would no longer be about to which social strata one belongs, but about survival!
Local wage boards may continue to rely on their fantastic computations of how much wage increase should be granted, businesses can continue to threaten that wage increases during an unstable economy would lead to closures (by the way, all economies are naturally unstable), workers’ endurance has its limits.
The situation in the Middle East is a lesson in our modern history. The façade of modernity and good life cannot prevent uprisings by citizens who are frustrated by the continued deterioration of their living conditions. We are witnessing uprisings of people who are blessed with vast reservoirs of fossil oil underneath their feet which we never even thought could happen because of their immense wealth. As businesses and government conspire to showcase the wealth of their nation, they forget that the standard of living could also grow with how the country is being projected. The ambiguity of how much should the people get from the wealth generated by the nation has failed in their favor. People, based on what they see aside from their experiences, such as unemployment, change their perspectives of what their standard of living should be.
In our case, the government and business should instead open a meaningful dialogue with the labor sector and together establish their own definition of the phrase “standard of living,” and veer away from the usual wage based value only of labor. We are not a rich country, but I am sure all the actors in this issue can offer a lot. One, the definition should extend to other benefits that the government could provide such as programs and policies that directly affect the income of ordinary workers such as improvement in health care coverage and the like, or enabling mechanisms that provide opportunities of people to be more productive. Second, business should explore their meaningful participation to the overall effort of improving the “living conditions” of their workers and their immediate communities. [For comments, email to: roldanalex@yahoo.com]
