| DIE HARD III |
 |
| Herman Tiu Laurel |
05/21/2012
The newspapers have just reported that the Metro Manila Wage Board
approved a P30-minimum wage hike to be factored into the “cost-of-living
allowance” and given in two tranches. Some labor groups that demanded a
P125-daily minimum wage increase described the wage board’s decision as
“loose change.”
Acting president of the Employers’ Confederation
of the Philippines (Ecop) Rene Soriano questioned the move, asking,
“Will the wage increase create jobs? The resounding answer is no,”
adding that the increase would, in fact, worsen the conditions of
vulnerable workers.
This tit-for-tat between the labor and
business sectors goes on every year with the same predictable outcome —
an unhappy compromise where both lose and the employable unemployed lose
even more.
According to Dr. Rosalinda Pineda-Ofreneo, professor
of the UP College of Social Work and Community Development, the entire
informal sector constitutes around 24.6 million informal workers and
operators, or 76.34 percent of the country’s labor force. Well, the
recent minimum wage hike just pushed that figure higher.
The
Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) claims that workers have no reason to be happy
with the small wage hike granted by the wage board. Its
secretary-general Roger Saluta says, “It’s another reason to intensify
the struggle for a legislated wage hike.” So, every year, the KMU revs
up for the perfunctory “struggle” then settles for the predictable
“loose change” while continuing to charge fees from its members to keep
itself going.
The unionized labor force in the Philippines,
according to one report in Bulatlat.com, has dropped from a high of 2.97
million 20 years ago to 319,408 in 2010 or 10 percent of the wage
earners in the country and less than one percent of the country’s labor
force. The underground economy is now reported to be 70 percent of the
national economy; and of the more or less 40 million labor force, 35
million are invisible to the formal, legal system of wages, incomes,
social security and benefits. Workers and employees in the underground
economy have a free-wheeling, negotiated wage system — and maybe that’s
why this sector is thriving and growing at the expense of the formal
economy.
During the discussions and debates on the latest wage
hike petition, one focus of interest was the comparative levels of
minimum wages in the Asean and Asian regions, with the employers’ side
highlighting the $10 per day in the Philippines in relation to Vietnam’s
$2.20, Cambodia’s $2, Indonesia’s $5.20 to 5.90, and China’s $3.75 to
$5.
KMU reacts saying most Asean and Asian counterparts may be
receiving lower minimum wages but their living conditions are way better
because of lower local commodities and services costs, and higher
purchasing power. Moreover, in reaction to BS Aquino III’s rejection of
his group’s wage hike demand, KMU chairman Elmer Labog adds, “The
problem with the President is that he is always taking the viewpoint of
the foreign investors, never of Filipino workers.”
The problem
with both of them — Aquino and Labog — is that they never take the
viewpoint of the real engine — the drivers and workers of the real
economy — the SMEs (small and medium enterprises), which constitute 95
percent of Philippine businesses and employ the vast majority of both
formal and informal sector workers.
Every year, this charade among
the three parties in the wage issue — government, labor and employers’
representatives — is played out without ever resolving the matter to the
benefit of our people and economy. The growing hardships of the working
class are never solved in any wage boards since there are more
fundamental problems that the decision makers know of but have nary the
guts nor will to confront decisively.
Of course, foremost of these
problems is our country’s “highest power rate in Asia” that’s
debilitating every aspect of Philippine life and livelihood. Hernan
Nicdao admitted this much on a GNN show. After reciting labor’s mantra,
the talk shifted to the Filipinos’ standard of living and, inevitably,
to the price of electricity.
The Trade Union Congress of the
Philippines (TUCP) had already demanded government action on this
problem late last year. But as it was unfortunately not sustained, then
it’s back to the old charade.
Jojo Borja of Iligan Light and Power
called me last weekend to report that their power utility company’s
retained earnings the past year alone exceeded their authorized capital
despite an electricity rate of only P5.50 per kilowatt-hour (kwh) and a
customer base of only 60,000, which from all angles, is a fantastic, if
not immoral, return for the company that Borja blames on the Electric
Power Industry Reform Act (Epira).
Thus, Borja also wonders how
much more a giant utility company such as the Manila Electric Co.
(Meralco) is raking in since it charges P12 per kwh with a customer base
of almost 6 million and with the majority of industry and commerce
situated in its 9,337-square kilometer-franchise area, where the
concentration of the national economy is.
It is very clear from
the example of Iligan Light and Power that electricity rates in the
country can be brought down dramatically and radically — if only the
will to demand and achieve it is there. That will certainly do all the
workers of the Philippines — in both the formal and informal sectors —
greater good than all the past and future tripartite wage negotiations
can ever hope to attain.
(Tune in to 1098AM, dwAD, Sulo ng
Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m.; watch Destiny
Cable GNN’s HTL edition of Talk News TV, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with
replay at 11:15 p.m.; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our
articles plus TV and radio archives)
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL:
http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20120521com5.html
