Raising wages
Today, the Central Visayas wage board will hear opinions and receive position papers on two proposals to raise the daily wage by P120 to P155.80 across the board. Not to put a damper on the proceedings, but what we know of the wage board’s track record leads us to expect that workers would be lucky to get an increase of more than 15 percent of what the petitioners have asked for.
The uneven situation in the wage board is not by design, but simply a function of received wisdom. That is, that workers must learn not just to ask for a larger slice of the profit pie, but first seek to make the whole pie larger. (Or as former US President George W. Bush famously said, “Make the pie higher!”) That government representatives in the wage board tend to vote with the management or employers’ representatives is no surprise. It’s just the way the wage-setting discussion has been framed, in the age of the unbound market economy.
Labor’s limited influence on wage boards also reflects its waning power in our economy and politics. One sign of this is the stagnation, even decline in some sectors, in union membership and influence. While the number of active labor unions increased by 639 from 2012 to 2015, or from 18,428 to 19,067, the number of workers covered by collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) declined by some 30,000 persons, government records showed.
What complicates the situation for organized labor is its failure, so far, to address workers’ needs in the face of new challenges. Consider artificial intelligence and how it is projected to threaten the jobs of low-skilled workers whose tasks can be automated or outsourced to someplace where labor is cheaper and enjoys fewer protections.
Don’t get us wrong: unions remain necessary. One can even argue that they’ve become more necessary as the balance of power continues to tip in capital’s favor. But unions have to push themselves into the 21st Century and learn to help workers grapple not just with old challenges, like the lack of security, but with new ones, like the need for more skills and continuous learning.
At the start of this month, unions again took to the streets. This time, though, some of them tried to bring the discussion to social media, by circulating images that reminded workers of gains that organized labor has won: among them, mandated minimum wages, social security, and overtime pay. That’s all very well, and labor does deserve credit for these protections. But those gains were won long ago. Now, unions need to go beyond occupying downtown streets for the occasional rally, and to get out of the fringes of the public’s awareness. Why aren’t young workers joining organized labor? Start there.