The country’s biggest labor federation said Monday it will seek an increase in the minimum wage to P1,200 a day, more than double the existing rate, saying this is the amount needed for a family to cope with rapidly rising prices caused by the government’s tax reform program.
“Let us not wait for the perfect storm to happen,” said Alan Tanjusay, spokesman for the Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines.
“Government must now mitigate the worsening plight of workers and their families by providing a safety net while employers… must immediately provide a substantial wage increase and save workers from falling into deeper destitution.”
While some labor groups have called for an P800 daily rate, P1,200 is what a family needs to live above the poverty line, Tanjusay said.
Prices for goods and services have risen steadily since the government implemented its Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law, which slaps higher excise taxes on fuel, the price of which has shot up sharply as a result of developments in world oil markets.
The ALU-TUCP reiterated its call to President Rodrigo Duterte to approve the proposed P500 cash voucher subsidy for workers submitted in April 2017, targeting an initial 4 million minimum wage workers. These vouchers would be used to buy rice and other basic needs as a form of government safety net for workers and would be separate from the conditional cash transfer program for the poor.
The labor federation also lauded the President for urging the 17 regional tripartite productivity boards to convene emergency meetings to discuss a uniform across-the-board increase in the daily minimum wage for all workers nationwide.
“The [increase in] wages should now be uniform because the poverty in Luzon is the same poverty felt by workers in Visayas and Mindanao. The prices of commodities are the same in every region so the salary should also be uniform,” he said.
The ALU-TUCP expects the world price of oil to reach $115 a barrel beginning in June due to a number of factors in the Middle East and South America.
“Because of these forces, the value of the P512 daily minimum wage fell by P186… The buying power of P512 is now only P326 a day,” Tanjusay said.
Meanwhile, the militant labor group Partido Manggagawa called on the President to implement a national minimum wage as he had previously promised.
Duterte has ordered he Labor Department to convene the regional wage boards to study the grant of salary increases in the face of sharp inflation.
“The order to convene the regional wage boards falls short of a firm presidential response to the inflationary crisis,” said PM national chairman Rene Magtubo. “For the past three decades, wage orders by the regional boards are so low that at present it cannot offset the impact of the rising cost of living brought about by the TRAIN law and profiteering by unscrupulous employers.”
The leftist Makabayan bloc, meanwhile, filed a bill proposing a P750 national minimum wage.
“The minimum wage must be reverted back to a national wage standard. Almost all prices of basic goods and services being traded in all regions are similar nationwide,” said Bayan Muna Party-list Rep. Carlos Zarate, in filing House Bill 7787.
Some are even higher in regions outside of NCR because of the transportation cost. It is gravely wrong to peg as lower the standard of living of regions outside Metro Manila because it is not reflective of the real situation,” Bayan Muna Party-list Rep. Carlos Zarate said in filing House Bill 7787, along with other members of the left-leaning group on Monday.
Zarate said a P750 national minimum wage is what workers need now to cope with the surging prices of goods and services brought about by the harsh effects of the TRAIN law.
“Truth be told, the wages of our workers have long been stunted and [their] purchasing power gravely diminished. This amount is still short of the P1,168 needed daily to support a family of six as of March this year based on a study by the think tank IBON Foundation,” Zarate said.
Citing the same IBON study, Zarate said the current minimum wage has not kept up with the rising cost of living.
“The NCR nominal minimum wage of P512 is just 43.8 percent of the P1,168 family living wage [FLW]. This translates to a significant wage gap of P656 or 56.2 percent, said the group.
For a family of five, the gap was nearly half (47.4percent) of the FLW. These wage gaps grew despite the regional wage board’s approval of a P21 minimum wage increase from P491 to P512 last October 2017,” IBON said.
While some lawmakers have called for a review of the TRAIN law, Reps. Robert Ace Barbers of Surigao del Norte and Carlos Uy-Barreta of the 1-Care party-list asked the public to give the tax reform program a chance.
“Let us not rush in judging the TRAIN law. The successive increases in prices of fuel constitute a lot of factors beyond our control. The Train law was passed with the safety nets on it,”Uy-Barreta said.
Barbers shared a similar view. “We should give this TRAIN law the chance to take off,” he said.
Negros Oriental Rep. Arnolfo Teves called for the automatic lifting of the excise tax on fuel once the world oil price hits $80 a barrel, as provided by the TRAIN law.
