Workers push wage board abolition

MANILA, Philippines — Miliant labor group Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) yesterday renewed calls for the abolition of wage board and for President Duterte to endorse the implementation of a national minimum wage.

“We urge President Duterte to abolish regional wages as he had promised and endorse a national minimum wage based on a living wage,“ PM spokesman Wilson Fortaleza said in a statement.

He said the President was apparently aware that the policy of wage regionalization has led to the cheapening of labor.

In a dialogue with labor groups last year, Duterte denounced what he called “provincial wages” and expressed preference for a nationwide minimum wage. 

“Given the delay in the (National Capital Region) wage order and further with inflation untamed, now is the time for President Duterte to turn mere words into decisive action,” Fortaleza said.

He said the order of the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board (RTWPBs) grating a P25 pay hike for minimum wage earners in Metro Manila is still unofficial.

The P25 wage increase, Fortaleza said,  is too small to compensate for the erosion in workers’ wages due to inflation.

He said “there are about 100 minimum wages in the country” that differ even across cities and municipalities in in industrial areas as Calabarzon and Central Luzon.

Fortaleza cited that the NCR minimum wage is P512 while that of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao is P280 – a difference of 45 percent.

“Yet the cost of living is not significantly different across regions, cities and municipalities. What kind of system is this?” he explained.

The labor leader said real wages have not risen from 2001 to 2016 even as labor productivity has grown by 50 percent during the period.

“In other words, the pie has become bigger but workers have not received crumbs even. Instead employers have greedily taken all the increase in size of the pie,” Fortaleza noted.