Labor group calls on Duterte to back legislated wage hike

Militant labor group Partido Manggagawa is expecting the employers to raise disaster and doomsday scenarios of closures, layoffs and inflation in response to the clamor by the labor sector for a national minimum wage fixed by law.

PM-Cebu spokesperson Dennis Derige said there is now the urgent need to correct what he described as worsening inequality in the labor sector. He said while workers are deprived of the real minimum wage, productivity is booming that gives employers more profit.

The labor group is calling on President Rodrigo Duterte to certify as urgent the House Bill 7787 pushed by the members of Makabayan bloc seeking to abolish the regional wage boards and fix the national minimum wage at P750 for all workers. The proposed measure also seeks to penalize abuse employers.

"Workers have been denied their so-called fair share in the fruits of production. Workers as well as the economy will benefit more if government will exercise its police power to compel employers to share the wealth produced by the blood and sweat of laborers," PM’s statement reads.

It said that employers profit from the workers but the latter are getting less.

"But employers pay workers less in terms of wages and benefits than the amount they have produced in the production of goods and services," it added.

PM also call on all labor groups to close ranks and form a stronger alliance to push for the demand to raise wages and to abolish the regional wage boards by amending RA 6727 known as the Wage Rationalization Act of 1989.

The continued existence of a mechanism that fixes the minimum wage rates by regions under this law renders futile the demand for higher wages to cope up with the skyrocketing cost of living today caused by the TRAIN law and global spike in prices of oil products.

Derige said that wage increases would affect profit margins but it will not make employers poor.

He said that a wage increase raises the capacity of workers to uplift their wellbeing and at the same time raises the demand for the production of goods and services, hence will sustain economic activity and growth.