From the News! – Your Daily News

Ding Cervantes
Philippine Star

SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga  – Central Luzon’s regional tripartite wage and productivity board (RTWPB) will start consultations after the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) in the region filed its proposal for an P80 across-the-board wage increase.

RTWPB secretary Elizabeth Teves said the wage board will start consultations with labor representatives from the region and employers in a meeting to be held at a restaurant in Olongapo City and in Abucay, Bataan.

“After these consultations, we will hold public hearings to present whatever will be arrived at in the consultations,” Teves said.

Teves expressed her “reservations” over TUCP’s proposal since it is also the same call made by their counterparts in Metro Manila, which is supposedly higher.

“The management sector is (also) open to increasing wages, but there seems to be reservations on the P80 proposed by labor,” she said.

Teves noted that militant labor groups in the region led by Workers’ Alliance of Region 3 (WAR 3) have been boycotting the consultations on minimum wage hike proposals over the years.

WAR 3 has been advocating for a legislated P125 across-the-board wage increase.

The last minimum wage increase in Central Luzon was granted in September last year and integrated the P9 cost of living allowance (COLA) into the worker’s basic pay.

In a recent report, the Department of Trade and Industry said the prices of basic food items in Central Luzon have increased from six to 45 percent since last December even as the cost of a few other items were noted to have gone down by as much as 63 percent.

The current wage rates in the region are P287 per day for those working in firms with assets of more than P30 million and P279.50 for workers in firms with fewer assets.

Agricultural workers get P257 a day, while non-plantation workers get P241.

Workers in hospitals with more than 20 beds are paid P278 daily, while those in other medical facilities with less than 20 beds get P263 a day.

In Western Visayas, labor groups asked the regional wage board to tackle a P50 wage hike petition.

Employer groups, however, said they are only willing to grant a P10 to P15 increase.

Labor representatives rejected the proposal by claiming “it is just a cheap solicitation.”

Labor regional director Aida Estabillo pointed out that the business sector in the region had expressed its willingness to grant a wage hike.

She said the spiraling fuel and food costs also added to the urgency of the wage petition.

Estabillo said the regional wage board will conduct their consultations on May 22.

The National Congress of Unions in the Sugar Industry-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines filed the P50 wage hike petition.

– With Antonieta Lopez