Consultation on wage increase ends on a standstill

GENERAL SANTOS CITY -- The consultation for a possible salary adjustment in Central Mindanao region concluded without any good news for minimum wage earners in the private sector.

Joel M. Gonzales, assistant regional director of the Department of Labor and Employment, said the multi-sectoral consultations last Thursday and Friday in this city and Kidapawan, respectively, failed to resolve whether a wage hike will be implemented in the region.

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"There's no decision yet to increase the minimum wage in the region. The Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board will still have to deliberate and we will come out with a decision probably by October," Gonzales said Monday.

Gonzales, also the wage board secretary, said no group has formally filed a petition seeking for a salary hike.

It is a moto propio (on its own volition) act on the part of the wage board to review the present rates because no group has filed a formal petition, he added.

There has been no salary increase for minimum wage earners in the private sector for two years now in the region, which straddles the provinces of South Cotabato, North Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and Sarangani and the cities of Koronadal, General Santos, Tacurong, Kidapawan and Cotabato.

In April this year, Ma. Gloria A. Tango, regional Labor department director, said they gathered government line agencies such as the National Economic Development Authority, Department of Trade and Industry and Commission on Higher Education, among others, to present an economic situationer to determine if there's a need to increase salaries of minimum wage earners in the private sector.

Based on that meeting, she noted that "there are no abnormalities" in the area's economic situation that would warrant a salary adjustment.

This despite the rising cost of electricity brought about then by the power crisis that plunged parts of the region in 12 hours of rotational outage due to the dry spell.

In June last year, the prescriptive one-year period to file a wage increase had lapsed, with the wage order in effect still dated June 16, 2008.

Based on the order, minimum wage rate for workers in the non-agriculture sector stands at P245 per day and in the agriculture sector, P225 for plantation and P220 for non-plantation workers.

The business sector has maintained that there should be no wage increase as any would be an additional burden, while progressive labor groups have been pressing for a legislated P125 across-the-board daily wage increase.