Saturday, August 11, 2007 Editorials: RTWPB’s zero wage hike stand
MANY people sounded surprised at the no wage hike decision that the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board (RTWPB) 7 made the other day.
That reaction is surprising in itself considering the record of the RTWPBs, especially the one in Central Visayas, in resolving wage hike petitions.
In a way, debates in the RTWBP on petitions for wage hikes have become monotonous considering that the arguments of both labor and management are repetitive.
Labor groups cite the rising cost of living in their petitions; employers always warn of retrenchments and firms closing if the minimum wage of workers is adjusted.
But there are variations, like Mylene Rodriguez of the National Economic Development Authority (Neda) talking about exporters suffering from a strong peso.
Everything, though, boils down to the irreconcilable positions of labor and management on many issues, especially on the pegging of the minimum wage.
Odd man out
Still, the presence of government representatives in the RTWPBs could have more than made up for the repetitiveness in the arguments of labor and employers.
But officials of the Department of Trade and Industry, Neda and even the Department of Labor and Employment vote only two ways.
They prefer either crumbs for wage hikes or nothing at all.
And this stance, which almost always seems to favor employers, is not totally surprising considering that government and business follow similar economic paradigms.
In the RTWPB, labor is the odd man out.
This is the reason for labor groups’ disillusionment with the decisions of the RTWPB and their calls for the wage board’s abolition.
Smug and deaf
The problem with labor groups, however, is that they are wracked by a factional strife that has hampered their articulation of workers’ interest.
They could not even come up with a unified amount for a wage hike, with the Associated Labor Union demanding a P70 hike in minimum wage and the Trade Unions of the Philippines and Allied Services seeking a P136.20 increase.
Not much pressure was also put to bear on the RTWPB members by labor groups, partly because of the mentioned disillusionment and partly because of this disunity.
But this does not mean that employers should act smug and government deaf to calls for wage increases; history shows the danger of taking labor’s pleas lightly for too long.
