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| NCR Wage hike petition filed by Kapatiran |
Citing the existence of urgent and reasonable
grounds, the Kapatiran ng mga Unyon at Samahang Manggagawa or KAPATIRAN, on
Monday, filed an instant petition for a P100 wage increase before the NCR Wage
Board.
KAPATIRAN, a labor organization duly registered
with the Department of Labor and Employment, was represented by its Chairperson
Rey Almendras. He was accompanied by fellow officials of KAPATIRAN and Partido
Manggagawa (PM) Chair Renato Magtubo.
A brief picket-rally was also held outside the NCR
Wage Board offices in Manila, to press the wage body to act on KAPATIRAN’s
petition despite the one-year ban as untamed inflation continues to erode the
value of wages.
Almendras, also the President of Philip Morris
Fortune Tobacco Corporation Labor Union, stated that their petition was
initiated on behalf of all minimum wage earners in agricultural and
non-agricultural sector, retail/trade and in manufacturing sectors in the
National Capital Region, whose real wages were greatly diminished by soaring
inflation and which nominal amounts remain at starvation level during the past
three decades.
“The petition to increase the minimum wage stems
from the need of the minimum wage earners to recover lost value of their wages,
cope with rising cost of living, and afford a dignified life as a common
worker,” said Almendras.
KAPATIRAN is pressing the NCR Wage Board to come up
with a new Wage Order as the inflation rate increased rapidly within months in
2022 – from 2.5% in October 2021 to 7.7% by October 2022. And just before the
actual filing of the wage hike petition, news came out of the inflation rate
accelerating further to 8.2% in November.
The group said the current minimum wage rate of Php
570.00 in NCR would only amount to P11,400.00 monthly income for a laborer who
works five days a week. “This is not enough to keep up with the average
expenses in their income class,” lamented KAPATIRAN, since as of last year, a
household needs at least P12,030 to survive the poverty threshold, according to
PSA.
“Evidently, minimum wages fall below this poverty
threshold and way too far from achieving living wage as provided under the
Constitution. The present NCR rate, in fact, constitutes a measly 10% of the
Filipinos’ dream for a ‘simple and comfortable life’ defined by NEDA in 2015,”
stated KAPATIRAN in the petition.
PM Chair, Renato Magtubo, asserted the P100 wage
recovery demand as just as it fairly aims to recover lost value of wages that
minimum wage earners had prior to inflation.
“We in the Nagkaisa Labor Coalition have another
track to pursue in rectifying decades of injustice done to workers by RA 6727
or the Wage Rationalization Act. We want this law repealed and replaced by a
new law whose mechanisms truly ensure the realization of the living wage
guaranteed by the Constitution,” said Magtubo.
He added that rather than push for the
controversial “Maharlika Fund” that would drain off workers’ pension funds in
SSS and GSIS, Congress should provide workers “Mahalaga” legislations such
nationwide wage increases and reforming the country’s wage fixing mechanism
that confined wages to starvation levels.
Demand for wage increases and living wage were part
of the 5-Point Labor Agenda being pushed by Nagkaisa and United Labor as the
basis for engaging Marcos, Jr. Nagkaisa denounced the lack of labor agenda in
the Marcos administration through marches and “Blank Paper” protests during the
commemoration of Bonifacio Day.
KAPATIRAN
05 December 2022
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