Workers in the National Capital Region will not go to regional wage boards for pay hikes as the Department of Labor and Employment suggested.
What workers need now is an across the board wage increase that would help close the gap between minimum wage and the living wage. After all, the Constitution guarantees a living wage, not a minimum wage!
However, the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Boards (RTWPBs) will not be able to do this for several reasons.
First, employers in cahoots with government representatives, can easily dominate decisions in the RTWPBs. The RTWPBs are composed of three representatives from government, and two each from the employers and workers. This means, all they need is the vote of 1 of the 2 labor representatives and they can railroad a decision.
Second, the RTWPBs usually grant minimum wage adjustment only. This means that only those who earn the minimum wage (and below) will enjoy such an adjustment. How about those who are getting above the minimum wage but still can barely able to survive the daily cost of living?
Third, all wage orders issued by the RTWPBs are replete with exemptions that effectively reduce the number of covered workers. It was for this reason that in the last wage order granted by the NCR RTWPBs, 90% of wage and salary earners were effectively excluded.
After 18 years of its existence, the RTWPBs, created by RA 6727 in 1989, has failed to: live up to its mandate of rationalizing the fixing of minimum wages to ensure a decent standard of living for the workers and their families; guarantee the rights of labor to its just share in the fruits of production; and enhance employment generation in the countryside through industry dispersal.”
Instead of creating a rational minimum wage system, the RTWPBs have created more than 300 minimum wage levels around the country.
DOLE records in 2005 showed ARMM region in Mindanao posted the lowest average daily minimum wage level at P140 while the needed wage to support a family of 6 at poverty level is P282. We found that all minimum wage levels around the country are below the poverty threshold!
A study by Labor Education and Research Network (LEARN) showed that instead of guaranteeing the rights of labor to its just share in the fruits of production, RTWPBs ensured that real wages continue to fall despite increasing labor productivity.
And rather than enhance employment generation in the countryside through industry dispersal, jobs generation has faltered despite the respectable economic growth these past few years.
Obviously, all these redound to the benefit of the employers. Thus, if there is anything that the RTWPBs have achieved, it is only its mandate to allow business and industry reasonable returns on investment, expansion and growth.
This government is essentially asking workers to beg for loose change from the regional wage boards which only a few, if any at all, would actually enjoy!
What we needed now is legislated wage increase and the reform of the wage determination system. There is a need not only to prioritize the bill providing for a wage hike, but also to ensure the passage of House Bill 1487 abolishing the tripartite regional wage boards and providing for a new structure that will determine wages nationwide and to determine minimum wages along industry lines as well.
However, both the bill calling for a P125 wage increase and the HB 1487 authored by AKBAYAN has been largely ignored because it will upset a lot of employers.
This only goes to show government’s neglect of workers rights.
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