Support for wage hike bills snowballs in Congress
The recorded profit of the top 1,000 corporations in the Philippines ballooned more than five times (552-percent) in a decade, but the average wages and salaries increased only 31-percent over the same period.
Sidebar: Rep. Winnie Castelo to plank for wage hike bill
By MARYA SALAMAT
Bulatlat.com
MANILA – Citing papal writings and research findings on economic, historical and comparative aspects of continuously denying the Filipino workers a substantial wage hike, a legislators’ forum organized by the House of Representatives labor committee upon the request of Anakpawis Partylist Rafael Mariano last Monday succeeded in gathering additional authorship and support for wage hike bills in Congress. Rep. Mariano is the author of House Bills 375 and 3746, which seek to enact a significant increase in the minimum wages of workers in the private and public sectors.
“A democratic state can do no less than side with their workers and their wages over capitalists and their profits,” said Sonny Africa, head of research of non-government economic think-tank Ibon Philippines. Africa showed the gathered legislators and unionists the huge disparity between the Filipino workers’ wages, which had barely increased in the last decade, and the capitalist profits which had ballooned nearly six times over the same period. Africa also showed how wage rates have continuously lagged behind and farther even from the government’s estimated family living wages.
From 2001 to 2009, the recorded net income of the top 1,000 corporations in the Philippines had ballooned more than five times (552-percent), from P116-billion ($2.65b) in 2001 to P756-billion ($17.27b) in 2009. But the average daily wages and salaries increased only 31-percent over the same period, from P222 ($5.1) in 2001 to P291 ($6.6) in 2009.
Sonny Africa of Ibon and other labor leaders told legislators that a substantial wage hike is good for the economy.(Photo by Marya Salamat / bulatlat.com)
In the National Capital Region, Ibon computed the family living wage at P999 ($22.82) as of Aug this year, but the minimum wage is pegged in the National Capital Region (NCR), where it is highest, at P426 ($9.73). The gap between minimum wages and family living wage is wider outside of NCR. Africa clarified that they based the computations on the National Wages and Productivity Commission’s data, even as he noted that the NWPC’s webpage for such data has been “under construction” for quite a while now.
Ibon also told the legislators that a P125 ($2.86) across-the-board wage increase nationwide will only mean a 15-percent cut in profits of companies operating in the country. It will still not bring the minimum wages close to the needed living wages, which the Philippine constitution has explicitly guaranteed its citizens.
There is budget, but little priority is given to public sector workers’ wages
Taxes collected by the government in the last decade have more than doubled (from P600-billion [$13.71b] in 2001 to P1,250-billion [$28.6b] in 2010), Ferdinand Gaite, national president of the Confederation for Unity, Recognition and Advancement of Government Employees (Courage) told the legislators’ forum. But the wages of public sector workers in the same period, noted Mr Gaite, have increased by only less than half (49-percent), and a big part of it was accounted for by bigger leaps in salaries of executives in government agencies, rather than in salaries of sub-professional and professional levels..... MORE
Source: Bulatlat.com
URL: http://bulatlat.com/main/2011/09/28/support-for-wage-hike-bills-snowballs-in-congress/
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