The labor group Partido
Manggagawa (PM) stated that labor groups are united in pushing a legislated
wage increase as a pathway to improving the living conditions of workers and a
step towards reforming the wage fixing system.
“It is the high-profile
campaign of the labor movement for a P200 legislated increase that nudged the
NCR wage board to enact the highest ever amount of minimum hike in the region
lest it be criticized by workers for being stingy and useless,” Lawrence
Cusipag, one of PM’s spokespersons, asserted.
“With the 20th
Congress convening by July 28 and despite the P50 wage order in Metro Manila
yesterday, we reiterate out demand for a P200 salary adjustment that is
nationwide and across-the-board so that all workers benefit. Even informal
workers and micro entrepreneurs will also gain from this measure through the
multiplier effects of a robust purchasing power of formal workers,” explained
Cusipag.
Labor groups will join
multisectoral organizations in the planned mobilization on the State of the
Nation speech of President Bong Bong Marcos, Jr. which is also the official
opening of the new Congress.
“Labor will raise the demand
for a legislated wage hike in opposition to the provincial rates which is an
instrument to cheapen wages of workers. Labor productivity has risen
continuously for the past two decades even as real wages have stagnated. Employers
have monopolized the fruits of so-called economic progress,” Cusipag ended. ###