ACT wants ‘living wage’ for workers

MANILA, Philippines — The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) has urged President Marcos to order a salary increase, both for public and private workers across all sectors, to a level that can support a decent standard of living.

In a statement issued yesterday, the ACT said the P40 increase in the daily minimum wage of workers in the National Capital Region (NCR) is a “pittance and a slap in the face of workers who are the backbone of our economy.”

“The P40 increase in the minimum wage is a mere token that fails to address the rising cost of living, inflation, and the growing demands of Filipino workers in the private sector,” ACT chairperson Vladimer Quetua said.

“This meager increase remains inadequate in providing workers with a living wage, falling significantly short of meeting the P1,160 family living wage [that] a five-member Filipino family needs to survive,” he added.

A living wage refers to a wage enough to cover a family’s basic needs for its members to have a decent standard of living.

Apart from salary increase for private workers, Quetua said it is “similarly urgent and important for the government to also raise the salaries of public school teachers and all other government employees as they also bear the brunt of the continually high inflation and expected more hikes in electricity, water and transportation costs.”

“Not to mention teachers’ low salaries in comparison to other professions such as nurses and uniformed personnel,” Quetua added.

“ACT reiterated that the best the government can do to fulfill its constitutional and most fundamental mandate to its people is to recognize the real conditions of workers and employees, enact living wages across all sectors, strengthen local economy, and heed the people’s longstanding demand for national industrialization,” the group said.

Meanwhile, six regional unions under the ACT have submitted their respective letters to the concerned regional offices of the Department of Budget and Management to seek updates on the status of the long-overdue release of their Performance-Based Bonus (PBB) for 2021.

“We continue to proactively seek the status of this benefit which should have long been released to our teachers,” Quetua said in Filipino.

He said that teachers are getting dismayed as this has been the longest delay in the release of their PBB since its implementation in 2013.

“This delay only shows that the Department of Education and the government do not see the importance of this benefit for our teachers. While our teachers, on the other hand, are doing their best to comply with all the reports and deadlines just to qualify for this performance-based benefit,” Quetua said.

The regional unions that physically filed their letters at their counterpart DBM offices were ACT Regions 4-A, 6, 7, 10, 12 and the NCR Union.

Other ACT regional unions are soon to submit their letters to DBM, Quetua said.

“We, once again, raise this concern. We are hoping for a positive response from DBM. We demand an update on the status and the urgent release of this overdue, longest delayed benefit,” he said.

Pay hike for non-minimum wage workers in Metro Manila

Labor group Partido ng Manggagawang (PM) yesterday pressed for the granting of a pay hike to Metro Manila workers receiving salaries slightly higher than the new daily minimum wage.

PM chair Renato Magtubo said employers should address the wage distortion resulting from the recent increase for minimum wage earners.

“Workers receiving wages above the prescribed minimum wage are also affected by the rising cost of living, as such may be entitled to an adjustment in their wages,” Magtubo noted.

Last week, the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board-National Capital Region approved a P40 increase in the daily take-home pay of minimum wage earners.

With the salary increase, Magtubo said, a wage distortion may occur and affect those receiving more than the minimum rate.

To address the distortion, Magtubo advised employers to adopt a specific wage formula recommended by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).

“A wage distortion formula by the DOLE may be useful to compute the increase for those workers receiving wages above the prescribed minimum wage,” he pointed out.

Employers, he said, may also provide the same amount of pay adjustment for minimum wage earners.

“We appeal to the employers to implement the P40 minimum wage increase to all its employees so as not to alter or distort the existing pay structure of their establishment,” Magtubo stressed. He asked DOLE-NCR to address complaints and act swiftly. — Mayen Jaymalin