Various chambers of commerce join appeal to junk wage hike

The Mandaue Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Cebu Furniture Industries Foundation with the Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce in Leyte and Agusan provinces are among those that joined the Regional Tripartite Wage Boards of Regions 1-Ilocos, 4B-Marinduque, Mindoro, Romblon, Palawan, 7-Central Visayas, 8-Eastern Visayas, and 10-Northern Mindanao to appeal to Congress the withdrawal or rejection of the bills that propose a P100-to-P125 across-the-board wage increase for their "adverse and irreversible impacts".

They said that a P125-across-the-board wage hike today will result to additional operating costs worth P1.2 trillion in the next three years that will lead to the eventual closures and demise of small and medium enterprises in the country.

They argued that the "current wage setting system through the board already reflects the local economic conditions and balances the interest of all stakeholders through the well-established process of regional and provincial public consultations and deliberations."

The Department of Labor and Employment has repeated its call for the rejection of any proposed legislation to increase wages across-the-board throughout the country as it underscores the positive role of the wage boards in maintaining industrial peace among the labor-management-government sectors.

As calls for wage hike increases, the Labor department recently convened the 17 regional tripartite wages and productivity boards to study a possible wage increase this year and to look closely at the impact of a P125-legislated wage hike if Congress approves such an increase.

It can be recalled that the House of Representatives passed HB 345 granting a P125-a-day across-the-board wage increase over three years while the Senate is still hearing SB 2030 seeking a one time P100-a-day wage increase.

As the debates developed, the Partido Manggagawa in Cebu expressed its appreciation to the Senate committee members for inviting labor representatives to the hearing on the proposed measure recently.

But according to the Alyansa sa mga Mamumuo sa Sugbu-KMU led by Elpidio Caterbas, its secretary general, the flexible labor policy has strengthened the various regional wage boards in the country and that workers will have difficulty in pushing for legislated wage increases. - Gregg M. Rubio