Philexport-Cebu reiterates stand on wage adjustments

CEBU, Philippines - The Confederation of Philippine Exporters-Cebu Chapter or the PhilExport-Cebu has reiterated its position to go against any wage hike this year, following the recently submitted petition by workers in Central Visayas seeking for wage adjustments.

In its position paper, the organization emphasized that exporters could ill afford to pay higher salaries in the wake of major disasters that leveled the Visayas region in general, and the persistent global economic slowdown.

In Central Visayas, there are two separate position papers submitted to the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board (RTWPB-7) by two labor groups, citing the rising prices of basic commodities and the erosion of workers’ purchasing power for their request for a salary hike.

PhilExport-Cebu in its position paper, underscored that any salary hike after the two disasters and the unrecovered global economic fragility is considered “callous”, impractical and reckless.

“Callous because it has no regard for the thousands of workers who have lost their jobs due to the two calamities that hit the region. Impractical because our traditional global markets for goods and services have not fully recovered from the global recession that started in 2008, and reckless because we will put ourselves even lower in the competitiveness scale when ASEAN integration is already just around the corner—with its implementation in 2015,” the PhilExport-Cebu position paper indicated.

Exporters said that they still  had to recover from the operational disruptions and damages inflicted by the 7.2 magnitude earthquake in the October last year, and the super typhoon Yolanda that hit the Visayas in November last year.

According to the exporters, increasing workers’ compensation at this time would also impact the country’s global competitiveness ranking.

At present, the Philippines is ranked third among ASEAN countries with the highest labor costs, after Singapore and Malaysia. The country is also the 59th out of 143 countries surveyed in competitiveness, and last among 30 countries in productivity based on wages and actual time worked.

“We, the exporters of Central Visayas, would like to appeal for a moratorium on wage increases in 2014 until such time that we have fully recovered from the effects of the slowdown in foreign orders for Philippine goods and services, and from the two calamities that had hit us hard,” the position paper said.

PhilExport-Cebu headed its president Venus Genson, represents 10 export sectors comprise of 400 companies in the region, such as electronics, industrial goods, furniture, seaweed, food, fashion accessories, gifts, toys and housewares, shell craft, and medical tourism.

The Alliance of Progression Labor (APL) is asking for a P130 daily increase, while the Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP) wants a P90 per day wage hike.

Meanwhile, in a separate interview earlier with Asian Development Bank (ADB) senior economist for Philippine Country Office Norio Usui, he said that while high productivity rate, is considered as one of the primary attractions to lure investments, the Philippines should make this its “magic spell” to cushion the threatening effect of global competitiveness.

According to Usui, the key to improving productivity in the Philippines is to increase the wages of the workers.

Contrary to Usui’s belief, PhilExport-Cebu executive director Fred Escalona, said that if wage hike is implemented soon, its adverse effects will include more companies to fold up and massive retrenchments and investment loss will be expected.

“The government needs to carefully evaluate the performances of each industry before giving in to any wage hike petition of labor groups. It will be unfair considering that sectors and industries have different performances,” Escalona said. (FREEMAN)