Pinoys, mostly women, remain lowly paid - ILO

MANILA, Philippines - The number of lowly-paid Filipino workers, mostly women, continues to rise despite economic improvements, the International Labor Organization (ILO) reported yesterday.

According to the ILO, lowly-paid workers increased by 14.5 percent as more women took on low-paying jobs.

“Women have not seen comparable improvements, with the proportion of female employees in low earnings going up by around 1.5 percentage points since 2001 in both Indonesia and the Philippines,” the ILO noted.

ILO said wage-setting mechanisms, such as collective bargaining and minimum wages, could help achieve a more balanced and inclusive development, by ensuring equitable sharing of economic growth benefits.

“Sound wage policies (based on social dialogue in particular) can help reduce vulnerabilities and the risk of low-paid workers falling into poverty,” the ILO explained.

ILO director general Juan Somavia said tens of thousands of people around the world are expected to join street protests on Labor Day to press for decent work.

Somavia said the continuing global economic crisis has hit workers the hardest.

“Workers are (now) seen as being consumers of all sorts of loans rather than having a legitimate share through wages in the wealth that they contributed to create,” Somavia pointed out.

He then called on governments worldwide, including the Philippines, to undertake necessary measures to provide workers access to good-paying jobs with labor rights.