The labor group Partido
Manggagawa (PM) opposed the call of employers for exemption and deferment of
the minimum wage hikes for workers in the National Capital Region and Western
Visayas. “It is adding insult to injury to workers for the regional wage boards
to exempt and defer the wage hike as demanded by employers. The minimum wage
increases are not even enough to recover the value lost to inflation for the
past three years. If the hikes are deferred and employers exempted then the
most vulnerable workers are left with nothing,” declared Rene Magtubo, PM
national chair.
Yesterday the NCR wage board
announced a P33 increase, thus raising the minimum wage in Metro Manila to
P570. Likewise, the Western Visayas regional wage board yesterday hiked the
minimum wage by P55 to P110. PM had earlier called for a P100 legislated wage
hike.
The group averred that even
small businesses can afford to give their workers a pay increase. “Wag kayong
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,” Magtubo explained.
He added “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 MSMEs.”
The group pointed out that a
MSME with 10 workers, will only incur an additional P330 in daily wage costs or
P8,580 in monthly labor expenses which translates to a mere 0.3% of its P3
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. Capitalists simply do not want to share the
profit they have accumulated through the decade and a half of sustained
economic growth,” Magtubo expounded.
He insisted that “P50 is
needed as wage recovery in the NCR. The National Wages and Productivity Commission’s own data shows that as
of April 2022, the P537 minimum wage in Metro Manila is worth only P487 due to
inflation since 2018.”
“The International Labour
Organization (ILO), in its Minimum Wage Policy Guide, asserts that exemptions
defeat the very purpose of the minimum wage which is to protect the income of
the most vulnerable segment of the working class. ILO experts also argue that a
plethora of minimum wages serves as a barrier to efficient and effective
enforcement of minimum wages. This is precisely the problem in the Philippines
where even in one region such as Calabarzon there are different minimum wages
across different towns,” he stated.
May 15, 2022
No comments:
Post a Comment