Thursday, January 25, 2007 Gloria’s order freezing P125 per day wage hike hailed
LABOR and business officials in Cebu welcomed the House of Representatives’ decision to defer the P125 legislated wage increase, saying it would have derailed an economy that is growing stronger.
“They should act, because that bill has caused trouble,” Labor Regional Director Elias Cayanong said yesterday. He is the chairman of the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board (RTWPB).
The Lower House has stepped into the wage boards’ exclusive function by attempting to legislate an across-the-board pay increase, Cayanong said.
The House, however, has deferred any further action on House Bill 345, pending further debates. The bill, first submitted in 2001, gained 151 votes December last year, enough to send it to the Senate.
Different labor groups welcomed a legislated increase, but employers’ associations warned that it would provoke either massive layoffs or compressed working time.
“We have always been appealing for prudence in handling this very sensitive issue. And both business and labor should look at this with common good in mind,” said Francis Monera, president of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
High labor costs and a shrinking market in exports have squeezed the small and medium enterprises that create the most jobs in the country, he added.
From 1989 to August last year, the RTWPB in Central Visayas issued 12 wage orders and granted a total of P160 in daily wage increases.
HB 345 proposes that the P125 increase be spread over three years, but Cayanong said this would have barred any other petition for wage increases as determined by the regional boards.
Legislated wage increases, he added, are less sensitive to the factors that regional wage boards consider, such as cost of living, prevailing market conditions, the cost of fuel and productivity.
“(If wage increases are legislated) productive and less productive workers would get the same increase. Don’t you think the more productive ones would get demoralized?” he said. (AIV)
