Wage Board to determine granting of wage increase
A member of the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board yesterday admitted that that the increasing prices of staple food and other basic commodities are enough to be deemed “supervening” event as basis of the board to grant a wage increase now for workers in Central Visayas.
Marianito Ventura, one of the two labor sector representatives to the wage board, said that the unabated increase in the prices of rice, meat and other basic commodities are clearly supervening events that allows the wage board to entertain wage hike petition and even act on its own despite the one year ban under the law.
Under normal situation, the board is prohibited from granting wage increase within a year from the time it last issued a wage order,
It was only last October when the board issued a wage order granting a P9 increase in minimum wage for Metro Cebu and P5 for the rest of
Ventura said the board will have its regular meeting today and this matter would possibly be tackled but, when asked if he would automatically moved for a wage hike in behalf of the workers, he will just support the pending petition filed by the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines asking for a P60 minimum wage increase.
There has been another petition filed by the Alliance of Progressive Labor seeking for a P130 increase, said
The APL, the Associated Labor Unions, and 18 allied unions, on the other hand, yesterday urged the regional wage board to act now on their petition, filed last January 1, for a P150.45 across-the-board adjustment in wages of minimum wage earners in the region.
Jose Tomongha, APL-Cebu chairman, said the wage board should consider as supervening events the spate of price increases of basic goods. “Nanawagan mi sa RTWPB nga aksyonan na nila ang amo petition kay di na matabang ang pagsaka sa presyo sa palitunon, dili lang bugas kundi halos tanan nga basic commodities,” he told The Freeman.
The board has yet to act on their petition, Tomongha said, adding that they were asked to submit to the board documents that would justify there are supervening events and the granting of the wage increase.
Tomongha said it is no longer necessary to prove there is a supervening event because even the officials of Department of Trade and Industry and the National Economic Development Authority have admitted that the prices of commodities have gone up. Both DTI and NEDA have representatives to the wage board, which has seven members.
Regional director Elias Cayanong of the Department of Labor and Employment, as chairman of the wage board, however refused to comment on whether the increase of prices now would be considered a supervening event.
He admitted though that the prices of goods are rising but on determining the situation as supervening event is for the wage board to decide. He said that a supervening event is defined by law as the disruption of the market prices that affects the income of the workers. –Fred P. Languido and Wenna A. Berondo/RAE
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