Digicast Negros

Wage hike disaster for economy – mgmt; It’s inadequate, unrealistic, labor counters

Frank Carbon and Wennie Sancho (right) have opposing  views on the RTWPB approved wage hikes.*

The Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board (RTWPB) 6 approved daily minimum wage increase of P33 to P40 for Western Visayas is a disaster for the economy, management said on Wednesday, Oct. 23.

Labor, on the other hand, called it inadequate and unrealistic.

“It’s a disaster for Region 6”, Frank Carbon, Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry vice president for governmental affairs, said.

Carbon said management will file an appeal before the National Wages and Productivity Commission.

“In 2022 Western Visayas had a wage hike of P110 and in 2023 it was P30 so it was P140 in two years, while the increases in Region 7 in three years were P30, P30, P33 for a total of P93”, Carbon said.

WV cannot have equal or higher wage rates compared to Cebu because businesses there have a bigger capacity to pay as their sources of revenue are industrial, manufacturing, tourism and trading that yield higher earnings than agriculture, Carbon said.

Region 6 has a very high inflation rate and that is what government should address, he said.

“Inflation is why workers in Western Visayas are faced with high costs of food and government is passing it on to the employers to solve, that is not our job,” he said.

“By increasing wages they are creating another problem as it will further drive up inflation,” Carbon said.

“If the decision is out, it means they rushed it just to please our politicians. It’s not economics anymore that is their main base, it’s to please people at the top…the basis should be capacity to pay,” he said.

LABOR RESPONDS
“The increase is still inadequate because what we need to restore is the purchasing power of the workers in Western Visayas that requires a P110 wage hike,” Wennie Sancho, General Alliance of Workers Association secretary general, said.

Even if they just gave us 80 percent of the P110 it would have been good, he said.

The RTWPB failed to consider the most crucial factor, which is the real poverty threshold of the people, Sancho said.

“The poverty threshold of the government is unrealistic,” he said.

APPROVED RATES

The RTWPB on Tuesday approved a P33 increase for nonagricultural businesses in Western Visayas with more than 10 workers, whose employees are currently receiving P480 a day for a total of P513, Labor Regional Director Sixto Rodriguez Jr., who chairs the wage board, said.

A P35 hike was approved for nonagricultural businesses with 10 workers or less that will raise the daily minimum wage from P450 to P485, Rodriquez added.

He said a P40 increase was approved for agricultural workers currently receiving P440 for a total of P480.

Also approved was a P1,000 wage increase for kasambahays (domestic workers), which raises their P5,000 monthly salary to P6,000.

The approved WV wage order will be submitted to the National Wages and Productivity Commission for review, Rodriquez said.

He also said the wage order will then take effect 15 days after publication on or after Nov. 16, or one year after the last WV wage hike was implemented.*

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