MANILA – After the Senate’s plenary approval of a proposed P100 mandated wage raise, the largest labor coalition in the country is calling on the House of Representatives to enact its own P150 wage elevation measure.
The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) advocated on Thursday for the approval of House Bill (HB) 7871, also known as the Wage Recovery Act.
While HB 7871 is currently awaiting consideration in the House Committee on Labor and Employment, the House leadership has instructed the committee to conduct public hearings promptly.
Advocating for a P150 increment, the TUCP highlighted that despite the recent series of wage adjustments sanctioned by the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Boards (RTWPBs) across the nation’s 17 regions, salaries persist below the poverty line set by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) and fall significantly short of the family living wage estimated by the IBON Foundation, a think tank.
It stated that since 1989, the wage boards have failed to adapt to significant shifts in the cost of living due to their “outdated exploitative approach,” which asserts that maintaining low wages is crucial for attracting investments to the country.
The most recent legislated wage increase, facilitated by Republic Act 6727, which established the regional wage boards, amounted to an additional P25 on top of the then-existing P64 minimum wage.
As of 2024, the highest minimum wage hike endorsed by the regional wage boards was only P50.
The TUCP emphasized that after nearly 35 years without a mandated wage increase, Congress should reconsider its “cheap labor” policy.
“All regional minimum wages today fall far short of bringing nutritious food to their family’s table. Without badly needed living wages as enshrined in the Constitution, malnutrition and growth stunting will further escalate, leading to sick workers and labor productivity dropping like a rock, while our children’s mental and physical growth continue to be stunted,” said TUCP Vice President Luis Corral.
“Let’s end the blame game that workers’ wages will increase inflation and discourage investments because the real culprits are astronomically expensive yet unreliable electricity and soaring food prices, and not the poverty wages further eroded by the rising cost of living,” Corral said.
Major corporations vehemently oppose mandated wage increases, arguing that leaving the determination of wage hikes to regional boards is in the best interest of both workers and employers.
The Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) asserts that legislating salary increments is not only inflationary but also unlikely to benefit the majority of the workforce, particularly those in the informal sector.
“The wage increase is only for formal sector workers, which is only 16 percent of the 50 million workers. The remaining 84 percent are informal workers like the fisherfolk, tricycle drivers, vendors and jeepney drivers, who have no employers and regular salaries,” ECOP said.
Jose Luis Yulo from the Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (The Chamber), the country’s longest-standing business organization, shares the opposition to mandated universal salary increases, labeling them as “unfair” to the business community.
Yulo emphasized that the regional boards are more equipped to determine the appropriate minimum wage for their respective regions.
“Our biggest challenge is making our laws work. We have regional wage boards, they should do their jobs. Let us not make a law that would supplant the job of the wage boards,” he said.
