House must now deliberate on wage hike as Senate passes P100 version—Partido Manggagawa

The group Partido Manggagawa (PM) stated that the Senate approval of the P100 legislated wage hike is a welcome relief. “We will wait for the House of Representatives if they can walk their counterpart bills which are higher than the Senate’s. Huwag sanang ang grasya ay maging bato pa kung aatras ang Kamara. Magagalit ang manggagawa. The battle now shifts to Batasan,” declared Rene Magtubo, PM national chair and a Marikina City councilor.

 

The group also asserted that all workers, formal and informal, will gain whether directly or indirectly from the legislated wage hike, contrary to the claims of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) that only 10% of “formal workers” will benefit.

 

“Minimum wage earners will get the P100 wage hike in full. Other workers in the formal sector will gain a portion of P100 through what is called wage distortion—wages above the minimum will have to be adjusted since the floor was raised. And workers in the informal economy will also benefit since formal workers with more purchasing power will patronize their products and services. It is ordinary wage earners—not rich professionals or capitalists—who buy from street vendors, eat in carinderias, ride jeepneys and tricycles, and purchase farmers’ and fishers’ produce in wet markets. In fact, formal and informal workers live together as one family so how can they not enjoy the wage hike?,” Magtubo.

 

He lambasted Sergio Ortiz-Luis of ECOP “for feigning concern for workers when in truth he just doesn’t want profits reduced through a wage hike.”

“Ortiz-Luis is peddling fake news. Let us be evidence-based with the numbers. The latest Labor Force Survey shows that 49.2%, about half, of the total 50.5 million labor force, are 24.8 million workers employed in private firms. Of which, one fifth or 4.1 million are minimum wage earners. Another 13.8 million workers, about a quarter or 27.4% of the labor force, are self-employed with no employees. Majority of them are informal workers like street vendors and tricycle drivers while a minority are middle-class professionals like doctors and lawyers. Therefore, three quarters of the labor force or more than 30 million workers stand to benefit from a wage hike. Ortiz-Luis is being disingenuous as he is actually defending the interests of the one million employers or 2% of the labor force,” Magtubo expounded.

 

He added that “In fact, even employers will in the end take advantage of a wage hike as aggregate demand in the economy will rise. Workers’ wages are entirely consumed to buy their families’ necessities, unlike capitalists who hoard part of their profits as savings or use it to obtain luxuries from abroad. This is what happened for the past two years: the economy prospered, and inflation and unemployment went on a decline after two successive minimum wage hikes in all regions. Wage hikes are good, not bad, for the economy and all workers.” 

STATEMENT ON SENATE APPROVAL OF P100 WAGE HIKE

 

The Senate approval of the P100 wage hike is a welcome relief. We will wait for the House of Representatives if they can walk their counterpart bills which are higher than the Senate’s.

 

Huwag sanang ang grasya ay maging bato pa kung aatras ang Kamara. Magagalit ang manggagawa.

 

The battle now shifts to Batasan.

19 February 2024

Big push for RH on Women’s Day led by Partido ng Manggagawa and RHAN

PRESS RELEASE
8 March 2011

Women members of the Partido ng Manggagawa together with various women’s groups from the Reproductive Health Advocacy Network (RHAN) held a march with around six thousand women to celebrate the 100th year of International Women’s Day by highlighting their support for the RH bill.

With the theme “Marching for RH, Marching for Life!,” Partido ng Manggagawa and RHAN assembled at the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) along Commonwealth Avenue, Quezon City at 1:00 in the afternoon. At 1:30 pm the group marched from the CHR to the House of Representatives, with other women’s groups that gathered in front of St. Peter’s Parish near the Sandiganbayan. A cultural and solidarity program was held at the South Wing gate of the HOR while sponsorship speeches and interpellations were going on. Simultaneously, a contingent from PM and RHAN attended the session at the Senate of the Philippines to support counterpart bill still pending at the Senate Committee on Health and Demography.

“This is a very important occasion for poor and working women suffering the brunt of the absence of a comprehensive reproductive health care program in the country. We are happy that the House of Representatives heard our clamour to immediately start the sponsorship speeches and plenary debate on the RH bill. Totoong urgent ang issues ng pagkamatay ng 11 kababaihan araw-araw, gayon din, ang pagdami ng kabataang kababaihang nabubuntis, 7 out of 10 pregnancies are that of teens,” explained PM Secretary General Judy Ann Chan-Miranda.

“On the occasion of the International Women’s Day, we also raise other issues specifically beneficial to poor and working women such as the absence of a socialized housing program, the passage of a law on security of tenure, a legislated across-the-board increase in wages, and protection for frontline service workers against indignities and harassment. Women, especially poor women, are not only doubly but multiply-burdened and greatly suffer from the lack if not the absence of income, high prices of basic commodities, electricity and water, among others,” added Miranda.

In the morning of Women’s Day, PM joined the Martsa ng Kababaihan which highlighted other issues that burden women such as employment and livelihood, violence against women and children, etc. Women participants marched from Blumentritt to Mendiola.

Women workers hold noise barrage for RH bill

PRESS RELEASE
4 March 2011

Women members of the Partido ng Manggagawa held a noise barrage for the RH bill bringing with them makeshift air-conditioners, bags of ice and folding fans in response to the cancellation of sessions at the House of Representatives since Tuesday.

“Women workers have brought whatever air-conditioning amenities that members of the House of Representatives need just so the plenary debates on RH can proceed. This symbolizes the exigency of the bill’s passage given that eleven (11) poor women, including teenagers, are dying every day from pregnancy and birth delivery complications,” explained PM Secretary General Judy Ann Chan-Miranda.

From a leaders assembly of women workers at the Department of Agriculture AIT Building in the morning, PM members marched to Philcoa for the noise barrage at 1:00pm. In preparation for the Women’s Day commemoration, the assembly discussed pressing concerns of women workers’ such as the RH bill, the security of tenure bill and the plight of migrant workers.

“We are deeply concerned with the increasing rate of teenage pregnancy. The Philippines, according to the World Bank, is among the Top 10 countries where there are an increasing number of teenage mothers (3.6 million). Seven out of every 10 women who are pregnant are teenagers. More often than not, these teenagers come from poor and working class families. We could just imagine how difficult life would be for these young women,” added Miranda.

PM believes that through age-appropriate sexuality and reproductive health education, young women especially, will learn the risks of early pregnancy and, thus, try to avoid unsound sexual decisions. “It is really important that the State provide the necessary preparation for teenagers to cope with puberty and sexual development through sex education,” stressed Miranda.

On March 8, hundreds of PM members including the youth will assemble by 1:00 at St. Peter’s Cathedral along Commonwealth Ave. then march on to Batasang Pambansa for the big rally in support of the RH bill.

Anti-contractualization group urges Congress to enact tough measures against contractualization

PRESS RELEASE
KOALISYON LABAN SA KONTRAKTWALISASYON
10 November 2010

Some 500 Members of the Koalisyon Laban sa Kontraktwalisasyon (KONTRA) trooped to the gates of Batasan Complex this afternoon asking Congress to enact stringent measures against contractualization to prevent companies from employing different schemes that undermine labor standards.

The picket was held in time for the public hearing scheduled by the House Labor Committee on the intensifying labor dispute in PAL.

“Without these tough measures, companies are emboldened to employ labor flexibilization schemes under the guise of management prerogatives as in the case of PAL,” said Partido ng Manggagawa Chair Renato Magtubo in a statement.

The former labor partylist representative explained that “Unless criminalized, contractualization, though prohibited by law, will be abused to the max by greedy capitalists especially when they find comfort from no less than the Labor Department itself.”

Pete Pinlac, chairperson of Manggagawa para sa Kalayaan ng Bayan (Makabayan), pointed out that schemes such as outsourcing and other kinds of labor flexibilization, are mere faces of the same coin.

“All these are meant to cut on labor cost by different means, either through outright retrenchment or by depressing the price of labor by resorting to contractual work arrangements,” said Pinlac.

Edwin Bustillos of the Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL) on the other hand said, the scourge of contractualization has effectively weakened the bargaining power of labor in terms of defending their job security and securing decent income.

“In most cases, contractual workers are denied decent wages, have no job security, and receive no benefits compared to their regular counterparts,” explained Bustillos.

Bustillos said the entire labor movement in the country is against contractualization and is asking Congress to reverse this trend before the Philippines completely becomes a country of contractuals.

KONTRA is a labor alliance opposed to the policy of labor contractualization. It is composed of Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL), the Archdiocese of Manila Ministry for Labor Concerns (AMLC), Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP), Manggagawa para sa Inang Bayan (MAKABAYAN), Manggagawa sa Komunikasyon sa Pilipinas (MKP), PALEA, Fortune Tobacco Labor Union (FTLU), Partido ng Manggagawa (PM), Unified Filipino Service Workers (UFSW), and Urban Missionaries (UM).