Friday, October 10, 2008 Wage board rules out increase
THE Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board (RTWPB) has set aside the new petition for another round of wage increases, citing the absence of any “supervening event.”
Wage board chairman Elias Cayanong said they will instead promote non-monetary benefits for minimum wage earners and activities such as the “Diskuwento Caravan” or “Tabo sa Mamumuo” in the Mandaue City Sports Complex on Oct. 16 where several companies will sell products at discounted prices.
Cayanong said they discussed its mechanics during their meeting yesterday, and will finalize everything in their meeting on Oct. 14.
The discount caravan for minimum wage workers was first announced during the industrial peace forum in Mandaue City last month headed by Vice Mayor Carlo Pontico
Fortuna.
In that forum, they also discussed the plan to request the National Food Authority (NFA) to provide affordable rice to workers through their respective companies.
The Philippine Independent Alliance of Labor Organizations filed last month a petition for an across-the-board P136 wage increase, using the skyrocketing prices of fuel as their argument.
But Cayanong, director of the Department of Labor and Employment (Dole) 7, said his reason cannot be used anymore because there have been several rollbacks in fuel prices by oil companies.
Too soon
Director Asteria Caberte of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the wage board’s vice chairperson, said it would be difficult to adjust again the existing P267 minimum wage, approved only a few months ago.
The RTWPB increased the minimum wage in Metro Cebu from P250 to P267 last May but this was not across-the-board.
Caberte said that aside from the price discounts they are facilitating with various manufacturing firms, the minimum wage earners will have a bigger take-home pay because of the tax exemption implemented by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).
The BIR has issued its implementing rules and regulations for the tax exemption that was supposed to start in July 2008.
Sen. Manuel Roxas II has urged the BIR to make the tax exemption for minimum wage earners retroactive to January 2008, as the law intended. (EOB)
