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
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