Proposed P125 legislated wage hike: Deal or no deal?

While calls for the passage of the proposed P125 across-the-board legislated wage increase intensify, the Department of Labor and Employment recently met with the regional wage boards to discuss possibility of granting wage increase in the regional levels.

On Friday, the labor department convened the 17 Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Boards to study the impact of the P125 wage increase and look at the possibility of a wage increase this year.

Labor and Employment Secretary Arturo Brion has ordered the RTWPBs to submit their reports on the possible impact of the P125-legislated wage hike within a week. The reports will be submitted to the Senate where the proposed bill is now pending.

But officials of DOLE are quick to defend the move, saying that the possibility of granting wage hike through RTWPBs is being studied in case the Senate junks the proposal for a legislated wage increase.

This as the Department of Budget and Management yesterday announced that it will submit to the Congress today the proposal for 10 percent increase in the salaries of government workers.

DBM Secretary Rolando Andaya said his office will submit to Congress today the one-page bill appropriating P10.3 billion for the hike in salaries of the one million state workers in the country. Under the proposal, increase will be in July and not in February as earlier reported.

DOLE has been expressive of its opposition to the legislated wage increase, saying it could result to bankruptcy of many industries and retrenchment of workers.

Labor Undersecretary for social protection and legislative affairs Romeo Lagman clarified that DOLE is not against the wage increase, but it opposed the mode by which it would be granted. DOLE has been reiterating that wage increase should be coursed through the regional wage boards and not through legislation.

The National Economic Development Authority has also earlier expressed opposition to the proposed P125 legislated wage, saying companies in the country have different economic standing and not all of them can afford to give increase to their workers.

NEDA stressed that the present mechanism of determining wage hikes through the regional wage boards is still better because this takes into consideration the particular economic features of each region.

The business community has also expressed that an increase in the daily wage, especially at this time, is inflationary and will trigger mass layoffs as well as force many companies to close shop.

House Bill 345 provides for a P125 across-the-board legislated daily wage hike, to be given in three installments of P45, P40 and P40.

DOLE said that for the past 17 years, it was only in 2003 that the regional wage boards did not grant any salary hike. - Wenna A. Berondo