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Saturday, July 15, 2006
Workers' pains don't merit P15 wage increase, KMU says
MILITANT Kilusang Mayo Uno-Southern Mindanao region (KMU-SMR) said the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board (RTWPB) 11 has again showed its true colors as a lowly lapdog for capitalist interests.
In a press statement, KMU-SMR secretary general Omar Bantayan said the recent "grant" of the wage board of P15 minimum wage increase and P1 increase in cost of living allowance (Cola) is no more than alms and an outright affront to the hard work of the workers.
This was how Kilusang Mayo Uno-Southern Mindanao Region Secretary General Omar Bantayan described Wage Order No. 11-13 that now puts minimum wage plus Cola at P240 for all industrial workers in Davao City.
Bantayan said, "These bogus wage hearings orchestrated by RTWPB in cahoots with capitalists can never give excuse to this insult to the millions of profits that workers generate for businesses. And for all these toiling, the government of Gloria Arroyo and big businessmen can only manage to accord a measly P16."
KMU-SMR said the new wage order can never offset the effects of the projected 8 percent inflation to hit the region by end of 2006. The cost of living in Southern Midnanao for a family of six is still pegged at P621.
"Despite these economic setbacks, workers productivity has risen consistently during the last decade, in Davao notably reaching 13% last year," Bantayan added. "Again, what we are asking is nothing that we did not earn. We deserve a significant wage increase not a scanty Cola that does not get included in our basic pay."
Bantayan cited a feasibility study conducted by the late Nonoy Librado Development Foundation -- an independent think tank here in Southern Mindanao -- that companies that are covered by the minimum wage law can absorb a P125 wage increase, especially during these times that workers' productivity is at a stable up-trend.
The study premised that since the ratio of cost of labor and cost of production has gone down from 11.1% to 10.6% over a five-year period, a P125 increase that is squarely tantamount to no less than 10% of the total production cost is not only possible but principally reasonable.
"Organized workers have known this for six years already; that is why the P125 campaign is gaining popular support," Bantayan said. (Press release)
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (July 15, 2006 issue)
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