THE labor group Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP) mocked the government’s much ballyhooed effort in regularizing 50,000 contractual workers since July last year.
It said the government failed to assist the five percent of the 25 to 30-million contractual workers in the country to become regular workers.
The ALU-TUCP said workers in the manufacturing, services and agricultural sectors nationwide were still employed under the contractualized work arrangement without security of tenure, deprived of the right to form unions, and unable to claim lawful benefits accorded to directly hired, regular workers.
“President Rodrigo Duterte should act on his campaign promise to eliminate the rampant temporary contractualized work arrangement and make an impact on the lives of workers by raising the level of the daily minimum pay,” the labor group said.
“Mr. Duterte had asked us on May 1 Labor day dialogue with labor groups to give him time on the issue of contractualization. We are calling on him to make up his mind now because millions of contractual workers are on the line, waiting and hoping to fulfill his promise to end it,” ALU-TUCP spokesman Alan Tanjusay said.
The ALU-TUCP also urged Duterte to make a meaningful impact in the lives of workers by raising the level of the daily minimum wage and enforce policies toward lowering the rising cost of living.
The labor group claimed the purchasing power of the country’s highest minimum wage of P491 had eroded by 27 percent by second week of April 2017.
The real value of Metro Manila’s daily minimum wage is currently pegged at P357—excluding mandatory social insurance deductions, records from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the National Wages and Productivity Commission show.
“No family can survive with P357 per day. Mr. Duterte has to directly and indirectly raise the level of workers’ wages and enforce a set of policies that would lower the rising cost of living if he wants to fulfil his promise to improve the lives of the Filipinos under his presidency,” Tanjusay said.
The ALU-TUCP has also submitted a proposal to Malacañang calling on Duterte to give P500 monthly cash subsidy to all minimum wage workers through cash vouchers in the purchase of basic commodities and payment of utilities.
