CCCI exec: Compensate workers based on skills

CEBU, Philippines - Companies should consider giving the right compensation to workers based on their skills and performance.

 According to Teodoro Locson Jr., vice president for external affairs of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the culture is that most employers just depend on salary hikes by the wage board, only then workers can experience a salary increase. 

 Locson said establishments do that instead of giving their workers what is due to them, which is unfair on the part of workers, he added.

 "We try to encourage our members and sectors [in the business] to give recognition or right compensation to workers depending on their skills," Locson said in an interview.

 The chamber official pointed out that there are even employers that only give better pay to workers who are planned to be "pirated" by other employers.

 "The chamber has always advocated to its members to provide their workers with whatever benefits that the establishments can afford," he said.

 There had been an earlier petition this year for a wage hike in Central Visayas.

 It can be recalled that the Regional Tripartite Wage and Productivity Board did not grant any wage increase last year; instead, it only gave a P13-per-day increase in Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) for minimum wage earners.

 Last Oct. 10, 2015, the wage board decided to integrate the P13 in the minimum wage.

 Earlier, Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz directed regional wage boards to review wage situations.

 Baldoz called for the assessment of the socio-economic conditions in their respective regions, while adhering to the wage reform framework.

 The two-tiered wage system consists of a mandatory floor or minimum wage as a shield for vulnerable workers, and of a voluntary productivity-based incentive scheme to encourage productivity improvement through bipartite, meaning employers and workers, negotiations.

 The wage reform measure is aimed at providing more effective protection to low paid workers by setting a genuine floor or minimum wage as well as to encourage productivity and enterprise growth.  (FREEMAN)