Press Release
April 29, 2013
In a picket today at the offices of the National Capital
Region wage board and the National Wages and Productivity Commission (NWPC),
the militant Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) call for the abolition of the two
agencies. PM denounced the NWPC and NCR wage board for being inutile and instruments
of the wage freeze policy.
“The NCR wage board and the NWPC do not just share the same
office, they also share the same wage freeze policy that favors the capitalists
and disadvantages the workers,” declared Judy Miranda, PM secretary general.
The NWPC’s last cost of living estimate of P917 was still in
2008 and is outdated in the face of PM’s own study which reveals the a working
class family’s daily expenses is now at P1,217. The cost of living estimate is
therefore is almost three times the current minimum wage of P456 mandated by
the NCR wage board.
About a hundred workers picketed the NCR wage board and NWPC
office in Malate, Manila .
The picket is also a buildup activity for the coming Labor Day commemoration. The
call for a legislated wage hike will be one of the highlights of the big May
Day rally. On the eve of Labor Day, PM will hold an overnight vigil of several
hundred workers and poor at Mendiola to press for its demands against contractualization
and high prices.
The group
called the minimum wages prevailing in the country as starvation wages. Yesterday,
to illustrate this point, a PM member went to the market today to buy life’s
necessities using an amount equivalent to the minimum wage in the National
Capital Region (NCR).
“The
minimum wage cannot buy a working class family their daily bread. The
Constitution mandates that a worker receive a living wage. Instead the regional
wage boards prescribed a libing wage,” asserted Miranda.
"Our
own estimate shows that the gap between the P456 minimum wage in the NCR and
the present cost of living is a yawning P761 or 167% of the ordinary wage. Even
if both parents work—which is the buy one, take one policy of the
government—then their combined income will not be enough to feed the entire
family," stated Miranda.
The
group’s cost of living estimate did not provide for savings and social security
which in the government’s basket of goods and services constitutes 10% of the
cost of living. Furthermore, PM's study did not include items such as leisure
and recreation, and the family budget for health excluded medical expenses. Miranda
said that "If we include
such items, and we must in a more accurate survey, then the cost of living will
significantly exceed P1,200 per day."
The
group is advocating for the establishment of a National Wage Commission. “The National Wage Commission is
different in that its mandate is to fix wages based on the single criterion of
cost of living. And despite the huge gap between the present minimum wage and
the current cost of living, the National Wage Commission can achieve equalizing
the two by a host of mechanisms among which are direct wage increases, tax
exemptions, price discounts and social security subsidies for workers,” Miranda explained.
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