Even small businesses can afford a wage hike—labor group

  

The labor group Partido Manggagawa (PM) asserted that even small businesses can afford to give their workers a pay increase. This was in reaction to a statement by the Employers Confederation of the Philippines President Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr.

 

“Wag kang kuripot! Before the pandemic, businesses, both big and small, accumulated revenues and profit without sharing the productivity gains to their workers. From 2001 to 2016, the economy doubled in size and productivity increased by 50% but real wages remained stagnant. The pie became larger but the slice of workers remained the same. Employers greedily monopolized all the new wealth produced by the blood and sweat of workers,” explained Judy Miranda, PM secretary-general.

 

PM had earlier called for a P100 legislated wage hike even as Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello asked the regional wage boards to review the possibility of a minimum pay hike. The group is asking that the proposed emergency session of Congress tackle a legislated wage hike.

 

Miranda added that “Worse, from 2018 to the present, real wages have declined by a significant amount of 8%. The National Wages and Productivity Commission’s own data shows that as of February 2022, the P537 minimum wage in Metro Manila is worth only P494 due to inflation since 2018.”

 

She stated that “The economic slump is not an argument against a pay increase. Instead it is a reason to provide money to consumers through a wage hike. Boosting the purchasing power of consumers—especially lowly paid workers who spend most of their take-home pay compared to high income earners—will pump prime the economy and lead to the revival of MSME’s.”

 

The group pointed out that a MSME with 10 workers, will only incur an additional P1,000 in daily wage costs which annually translates to 10% of its P 3 million asset size.

 

“This will definitely not bankrupt an MSME. But a lack of market because of low consumption will kill an MSME. A wage hike will create a virtuous cycle in the economy. But of course, ECOP—as the voice of the capitalist class in the Philippines—do not want to share the profit they have accumulated through the decade and a half of sustained economic growth,” Miranda expounded.

March 13, 2022