TUCP urges employers & gov’t to share economic gains with workers; asks wage board to hike wages anew by 85 pesos

By TUCP
April 3, 2013

QUEZON CITY – The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) yesterday filed a petition before the wage board urging employers and government to share the gains of the economy with the workers in Metro Manila by increasing the current 456-peso minimum wage rate by 85 pesos.

If granted, the daily minimum salary rate would become 541 pesos. As of June 2012, a family of six needs at least 1,022 pesos a day to live decently. TUCP also announced plans to file wage increase petitions in Cebu, Davao, Cagayan de Oro cities next week.

“Recently, Fitch Ratings upgraded our economy to investment-grade (BB+ from BB-) - a vote of confidence in the Philippine economy. The international finance community recognizes our outstanding economic fundamentals including faborable interest rates, sound banking system, sustainable fiscal position and good tax revenues, and strong external position,”’ said TUCP Partylist Rep. Raymond Mendoza.

“It is our obligation to help our workers get what is legally and morally due them. They toil all day, sweat for grueling work hours, break their back to keep enterprises alive, and yet, are left to scrape the bottom of the barrel. The employers and our government should respond to this petition in the spirit of allowing workers partake of the blessings of a booming economy in the spirit of equity. Philippine prosperity cannot and should not be built on a permanent class of poor people,” Mendoza stressed adding: “we therefore call on the wage board to consider that the times are good and the workers deserve to receive their just share of this vastly improved and improving economy.”

TUCP President Vic Balais, on one hand, emphasized the point by saying: “We are not asking too much or too little. This amount does not and will not impede current investments nor will it discourage new investors. We are only asking for a decent living for our workers and their families.”

Government estimates there are more than 8 million workers in Metro Manila region working in different sectors with around a million are receiving minimum wage rate.

Last year, the seven-man tripartite wage and productivity board issued wage order 17 approving a measly 20 and 10 pesos in June and in November amid TUCP’s 90-peso wage increase petition. It also integrated into the basic pay the 22-peso COLA approved in 2011.

In a four-page petition Balais and Mendoza submitted yesterday, it said the workers in metropolis have not been given a single peso real wage increase since 1989. As of February 2013, the purchasing power of the latest legislated 456 peso daily minimum wage was only 362.77 pesos, eroded by 20.45 percent.

Between March 2012 and February 2013, the consumer price index or CPI in the region rose from 123.1 to 125.7 which requires a 9.63 peso additional increase in minimum wages. The prices of goods and services are expected to rise by 6% which would require an additional 27.36 peso adjustment considering the coming whammy of increasing tuition fees, increasing transport fares including the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) and Light Rail Transit (LRT), increasing residential power rates because of the introduction of Open Access in the NCR, increasing health care costs because of the privatization of public hospitals and the inflationary effects of election spending.

In addition, the petition also said that workers have done their share in improving the standards of living in the country, particularly in the National Capital Region (NCR), which continues to be the largest contributor to the national economy, 35.7 percent share in 2011, and 35.8 percent in 2010 and 2009.

However, the workers’ own standards of living have not risen. It is about time that overall improvements in standards of living in NCR be reflected in real gains in the minimum wage.

The TUCP is also asking a mere P2.00 per day share of the growth in Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) for the past 24 years AS EQUITY SUPPLEMENT. This would be equivalent to 48 pesos.

The petition, in conclusion, said the level of minimum wage needed to help restore the purchasing power of the workers’ wages in NCR AND to give them a share in the region’s economic development should be P541, computed as follows:

P456.00 - the minimum wage in June 3/Nov 1, 2012

9.63 - from actual 2.112% increase in prices between March 2012 and February 2013

27.36 - projected 6% rise in CPI

48.00 - P2.00/year since 1989 that there were no increases in real wage