Living wage, freedom of association asserted on celebration of Human Rights Day

 

Demand for living wage and freedom of association highlight workers’ participation in the Human Rights Day protest held in Manila, Saturday.

 

The Partido Manggawa (PM), said 74 years after the International Declaration of Human Rights and yet living a life of dignity and improvements in peoples’ standard of living that were desired under that declaration remain wanting.

 

“This is because in many states, including the Philippines, these aspirations remain a scrap of paper. And with civil and political rights, including the right to form unions, to bargain and even to strike are highly constrained, achieving living wage and rising standard of living as provided under the Constitution were never achieved,” said PM Secretary General Judy Miranda.

 

PM Joined the human rights community led by PAHRA and iDEFEND in a caravan and march to Mendiola this morning.

 

Miranda lamented that without a Labor Agenda to stand with, the Marcos administration will just be another sad episode in the country’s lack of compliance to international commitments on human rights.

 

Living wage, according to Miranda, “is the only way to achieve a golden age as the current poverty wages consigned workers to poverty even if their productivity has increased many folds during the last three decades.”

 

PM accompanied the Kapatiran ng mga Unyon at Samahang Manggagawa (KAPATIRAN) last Monday in filing a P100 wage increase for wage recovery (WinWar) petition at the NCR Regional Wage Board. Similar petitions will be filed in other regions in the next few days as inflation continues to soar.

 

PM also wants Congress to abolish the regional wage boards in favor of a national wage commission to reform the country’s wage fixing mechanisms that fail to bring wages nearer the living wage as mandated by the Constitution.

 

“The Maharlika bill should be scrapped in favor of the workers agenda such as wage hikes and wage reforms, ending endo, and the creation of strong public employment programs,” referring to the controversial Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF) that Congress is pushing, said Miranda.

 

The group said the sovereign wealth fund can only be sustained by wealth tax as the public sector runs on deficit and the real surplus is at the hands of the wealthiest businessmen.

Photos of the December 10 Human Rights Celebration can be accessed here: https://www.facebook.com/partidomanggagawa/posts/pfbid02LoqtmQCgWeYDQ4bq1ihGfRhpBYAiHCMwEmAEpEfxi8Q1tJzEu7AWPhPyNhSgJMoJl

Partido Manggagawa

10 December 2022

Partido Manggagawa welcomes SSS and GSIS exclusion from MIF, seeks GFI’s accountability

The Partido Manggagawa (PM) welcomes the decision of the House panel to spare SSS and GSIS from Maharlika’s sources of fund.

But the group maintains that the decision does not absolve Congress as well as the executives of the two pension funds from accountability.  

PM said members’ vigilance and strong opposition were key for this reversal, and thus, should be sustained to prevent future attempts at misappropriating workers’ funds.

“The mere fact that Congress toyed with the idea of creating a wealth fund out of our pension funds is already a red flag. But more reprehensible was the reckless approval of the SSS and GSIS executives to divert funds into the MIF without consulting the fund owners – the Filipino working class,” said PM Secretary General.

To prevent a repeat of this attempt for fund diversion, the group proposes that a mechanism for consultation - in the minimum regular dialogue with labor groups and in the maximum, a referendum for members - be instituted in the SSS and GSIS manual or system of operations.

Miranda explained that fund members were truly disgusted with SSS’ decision because an 11-15% increase in premiums was imposed beginning 2018 on the pretexts that the fund’s life was deteriorating, and members’ benefits need to be enhanced.  

Women workers expressed this reservation as Miranda recalled, during the public hearings on the 105-Day Expanded Maternity Leave, the SSS claimed the EML can only be funded by an increase in premiums. “But now we’ve got a surplus for Maharlika,” lamented Miranda.

Earlier, the Nagkaisa Labor coalition where PM is affiliated, countered that a wealth tax is the better source of the sovereign wealth fund (SWF) as they are a real surplus from labor’s productivity that remains concentrated at the hands of wealthy businessmen.

Partido Manggagawa

08 December 2022

Nagkaisa statement on sovereign wealth fund

Wealth fund should come from wealth tax: 

Pera naming mga manggagawa yan, bakit kayo ang nag-uusap?

 

Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) are essentially profit-driven state-owned investment funds. Some of our neighboring countries who want to make the most out of their surplus—usually foreign exchange generated from exports—established state-owned entities to invest their excess capital on various instruments. Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, among others, created their own SWFs.

 

With the potential of SWFs to grow, they can distort incentives in an economy where they are invested enough to favor specific economic activities and enterprises. Although SWFs usually invest in foreign instruments, there is nothing stopping them from pouring investments on profitable economic activities and enterprises at home, thus, making SWFs a strategic tool for industrial policy. But this is not necessarily the motivation for the proposed Maharlika Wealth Fund.

 

Now, should workers support the government’s attempt to create an SWF?

 

That public pension funds are identified as sources of financing for the SWF already earns the proposed fund minus points. Public pension funds are fragile. There is a reason both SSS and GSIS are very careful in their investment decisions and that is because that is how they secure future generations of Filipinos. GSIS should know the risks involved especially in foreign money market, after all, their exposure to the 2007-2008 Global Financial Crisis may have costed the pension fund some of its resources.

 

Can politicians pushing for SWF guarantee the security of workers’ retirement funds while exposing it to potential losses from profit-driven, speculative investment decisions? House representatives who back the SWF argue that pension funds are guaranteed by government funds anyway, and that the SWF will come with sufficient safeguard measures.

 

But NAGKAISA has a better idea to secure workers’ pensions, and that is by not exposing them to unnecessary risks. If SWF should be pursued, it must be funded by true surpluses generated by the economy—the proceeds from wealth tax!

 

In 2020, NAGKAISA floated the idea of taxing the unused assets of the wealthiest in the country. The tax revenue from the wealth tax could have funded pandemic recovery measures of the government. Now that the Philippines is gradually recovering, potential revenues from wealth tax can now be used to fund ideas such as SWF without risking workers’ funds.

 

And what is this obsession about the term “Maharlika”? If the proponents want to connect SWF to a concept from Philippine history, then they should have kept in mind that the Philippine government does not have a good record in managing public funds. That fact is also historical. Unless the proponents have concrete plans about protecting the SWF from turning into a Maharlika Wealth Scam, House Bill 6398 cannot just be allowed to pass. In any case, workers remain critical of this proposal especially when their pensions are on the line.

NAGKAISA Labor Coalition

03 December 2022