EDITORIAL - A pro-labor decision

A joyful Christmas celebration awaits thousands of minimum wage earners across Central Visayas as the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board (RTWPB)-7 approved last Tuesday an increase in their daily salaries.

The adjustment will raise the minimum daily income of workers in the region in non-agricultural establishments that employ more than 10 employees to P404 from the present P386. For agricultural establishments employing less than ten employees, the daily wage will be P396.

“The new wage order will take effect 15 days after publication. As of now, we don’t know when it will take effect exactly because it will have to be forwarded to NWPC first," according to Salome Siaton, chairman of RTWPB-7 and regional director of the Department of Labor and Employment-7.

While the new salary hike is much higher than the previous rounds of increases, those in the labor sector were still not satisfied with the development, saying the raise is not enough to compensate the growing cost of living.

The Associated Labor Unions said that it is “deeply disappointed with this meager amount that the wage board came about. This amount will not help lift minimum waged workers from the stark high cost of living in the region."

The workers’ organization even demanded a computation from the wage board to know how it came up with such an “incredulous amount” that resulted from the “fancy of greedy business and employers."

Just like in the previous rounds of wage hikes, resistance from those in the labor sector has been expected because they want the regional wage board to succumb to their demand that is impossible for the government to implement.

For its part, there is really no way for the government to give in to their demands since there is also the plight of the business sector to consider. Of course, the approval of the wage increase is a piece of good news, a pro-labor decision from the government.