THE business sector in Bacolod City and Negros Occidental is calling for a stop to a mandated daily wage increase.
Their stand is stated in a position paper signed by leaders of Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MBCCI), Chamber of Real Estate Builders Association (Creba)-Negros Occidental Chapter, and Subdivision and Housing Developers Association (SHDA)-Negros Occidental Chapter.
They are proposing “a wage increase based on productivity set forth by the tripartite body for each economic or sub-sector industry.”
Pending before the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board Region (RTWPB) is the petition from General Alliance of Workers Association (Gawa), and the New Independent Workers Association (Niwo) for P72 to P85 across-the-board wage increase, citing increases in the cost of living as their main argument in order to survive.
The business groups in their position paper stated that “the present method of asking for an across-the-board wage increase is now outmoded, counterproductive and not beneficial to both labor and management.”
This is “by virtue of free trade agreements that our government has signed and entered into with other countries in the global free market arena effective last January 1, 2015,” they added.
They also asked the RTWPB “to commission studies and convene an assembly where the productivity standards must first be discussed by the three partners in economic development namely, labor, management, and government before any appropriate monetary as well as non-monetary benefits can be established.”
At present, wage rates in Western Visayas range from P245 to P255 per day for non-agricultural workers and for P255 per day for agricultural workers.
Wennie Sancho, labor sector representative to the RTWPB, said last month that despite the series of significant rollbacks in the prices of fuels, prices of goods remain high so there's really a need for a wage increase.
The RTWPB in Western Visayas has an ongoing a consultation on the proposed increase in daily minimum wage.
Labor Regional Director Ponciano Ligutom, chairman of the RTWPB, had earlier said the public hearing on the wage increase petition will be held on February 20 and they may decide on it by May 1.