Cebu workers' coalition to push for wage hike

CEBU, Philippines - Living Wage Coalition-Cebu, the petitioner of the wage hike petition in Central Visayas, said that they will continue to push for the said petition by conducting rallies despite the wage moratorium being pushed by the business chambers in Regions 6, 7 and 8.

"The more we need an increase of salary due to the crisis we faced last year," said Partido ng Manggagawa-Cebu spokesman Dennis Derige.

PM-Cebu was one of the over 50 different labor organizations and unions that filed the P132 daily wage increase for workers in Central Visayas last October before the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board-7.

The coalition already submitted their opposition to the wage moratorium before the RTWPB-7 last December.

Derige said that the coalition will be launching several rallies in Cebu and other parts of the country for the granting of their petition as well as other petitions in other regions.

The country's biggest labor union, the Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines, also filed a separate P90 daily wagehike petition for all workers in Region 7.

The Living Wage Coalition-Cebu, according to Jose Tomongha, chairman of the Alliance of Progressive Labor-Central Visayas, has over 20,000 labor union members.

Among the grounds cited by the coalition for the P132 wage adjustment were the insufficient increases from the past, the reduction of the purchasing power of the peso, oil price hike, inflation rate, and increases in the prices of basic commodities, tuition fee, power rate and living wage. —/BRP (FREEMAN)