NCR workers granted wage hike
The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) on Monday announced that the Regional Tripartite Productivity and Wages Board-National Capital Region (RTPWB-NCR) has approved a 125 pay increase for minimum wage earners in Metro Manila.
“Last October 30, the National Capital Region approved a 125 basic wage increase and integration of its existing 110 COLA. Upon effectivity of the Wage Order No. NCR-22, the new minimum wage rates in Metro Manila shall be 1500 to 1537 across different sectors,” Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello said in a press briefing.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said the 125 wage hike is what they assumed and factored in their 5.2 percent inflation forecast for 2018.
With the grant of 125 wage increase, the minimum salary in the non-agriculture sector will now be 1537, from 1512.
The salary adjustment also covers those in the retail/service establishments employing
15 workers or less and manufacturing establishments regularly employing less than 10 workers, the new minimum wage rate would be 1500, from 1475.
Records showed that so far, the highest wage hike given to workers in Metro Manila was 130 in 2012.
Bello said the wage boards have to balance the needs of workers and their families with the capacity of enterprises to pay the additional labor costs without impairing business, especially its capacity to continuously generate jobs.
The new wage order will take effect 15 days from its publication in a newspaper of general circulation.
Senator Joel Villanueva joined labor groups and some Roman catholic priests in saying that the wage increase was not enough.
But Malacañang thinks otherwise, saying it is enough for Metro Manila workers.
“This is inadequate considering the continuous increase in the prices of goods,” the chair of the Senate Committee on Labor, Employment and Human Resources Development said in a statement Monday.
The “most sensible” way to help workers, Villanueva said, would be to lower the value-added tax (VAT) on goods and services from 12 percent to 10 percent.
“This will have a better effect than a wage increase of 125,” he said.
Bishops HonestoOngtioco of Cubao and Broderick Pabillo of Manila said the amount is measly amid the rise in the prices of goods and commodities.
Labor group PartidoManggagawa, meantime, said the 125 wage hike is just alms not relief to underpaid Filipino workers.
“125 is short by 30 percent to make up for the 135.84 erosion in wages due to the 7 percent inflation in the NCR recorded in August this year. PartidoManggagawa’s own cost of living estimate for a family of five in Metro Manila is around 11,300 a day, more than double the new minimum wage of 1537,” PM Chairman Rene Magtubo said in a statement.
“The whole controversy about the NCR wage hike just proves that no matter how hard workers make a devotion to Santo Rodrigo, they will not be blessed with a sufficient wage order. The problem lies in the system of wage regionalization in which wage boards base their wage hikes on the capacity to pay of employers and not on the cost of living of workers,” he added.
Sentro Secretary General Joshua Mata was not surprised with the increase.
“That wasn’t surprising. After all, the regional wage boards were instituted precisely to keep wages down in line with the government’s cheap labor policy. These 7-person regional wage boards are dominated by government. Government, with their three votes (DTI, NEDA, and DOLE), in collusion with employers who have two votes, would always outvote Labor who only have two votes,” he said.
Mata said these regional wage boards were enacted to divide and disperse trade union power into separate regions, where most have low union density as well as divert the focus of the labor movement from Congress which in the past sets the minimum wage.
Meanwhile, as of end October, 16 out of 17 regional boards have issued new wage orders granting increases in the current minimum wage rates, ranging from 19 to 157.
Among the regional wage boards that have already issued their respective wage orders this year are: Central Luzon (120); Calabarzon (19145); Western Visayas (18.50-126.50); Central Visayas (110-152); Eastern Visayas (120-130); Zamboanga Peninsula (120); Davao Region (156.43); Soccsksargen (116-118); Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (115) and Cordillera Administrative Region (120-130).
Only the Regional Board of Caraga has yet to issue, as its current wage order will still reach its anniversary date on December 8, 2018. (With reports from Genalyn D. Kabiling, Vanne P. Terrazola, and PNA)