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P125-wage hike bill refiled in Congress


As the 15th Congress resumed Monday, militant party-list Anakpawis filed for the third time the bill calling for a P125 across-the-board increase in the daily wage of private sector employees. Workers from the labor alliance Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) also trooped to the reopening of the session in the Senate on the same day, calling for “the immediate legislation of bills from both the Lower House and the Senate." The bill should be heard soon by the House Committee on Labor and Employment, Anakpawis Rep. Rafael Mariano said Tuesday. Mariano urged the House and Senate leadership, as well as President Benigno Aquino, to classify the bill as “urgent." Aquino should reverse the “anti-labor" policies of his predecessor, former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, under whom the bill was stalled and blocked for nine years, KMU said. An earlier version of the bill, filed during Arroyo’s term, was approved on third reading by the House of Representatives during the 13th Congress. However, the bill was recalled at the last minute for a “review" of the committee report that was the basis of the measure. Then nothing happened after the bill was discussed in a comitte hearing during the 14th Congress. Now is the time to pass the “much-needed, much-deserved, and long-denied" wage hike provided for in HB 375, said KMU in a statement. The current P404 minimum wage in the National Capital Region amounts to only P242 in real value, when compared with the price index for the year 2000, based on research of think-tank IBON Foundation. Contentious proposal Earlier this year, the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) rejected proposals for nationwide wage hikes. In the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis, "industries and businesses, in general, are in a very weak position at the moment to absorb a wage hike," said ECOP. In a hearing held by the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board of the National Capital Region in April this year, businesses proposed “nonwage solutions," which included government mobilization of the manufacturing sector to offer cheap goods to low-income workers; employees’ training on managing personal finance; additional fringe benefits such as a monthly sack of rice or a bag of groceries. However, a substantial wage hike is necessary for workers to survive the rising prices of goods, services and utilities like water and electricity, said Anakpawis. The wage board ended up implementing a P22 daily wage hike in the NCR, which worker groups decried as “too low." The focus should be on job generation instead of wage hikes, ECOP said. While ECOP argued that additional labor costs like the wage hike would have to be passed on by companies to consumers, labor groups said that the wage hike would prop up workers’ purchasing power. “People are struggling harder and harder everyday to survive, while corporations continue to enjoy immense profits… Workers have a rightful claim to the profits of businesses that came from our sweat, and to the economy we keep afloat through our labor," said KMU executive vice-chairperson Joselito Ustarez. — VS, GMANews.TV

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