Workers push for higher wages amid food crisis
By Mynardo Macaraig
Agence France-Presse
First Posted 11:37:00 05/09/2008
Workers such as Manila office messenger Arthur Manibale who earns just P362.00 ($8.64) a day says he is just keeping his head above water financially.
He no longer buys new clothes, is sometimes forced to borrow from friends, and has largely given up eating meat because he can no longer afford it.
But one thing he cannot do without is rice, the national staple.
"That is my top priority. I must always have rice. I can save on other things," he says.
The rising price of food -- especially rice, for which the cheapest variety has gone up to P33.00 (78 cents) a kilogram (2.2 pounds) from P25.00 two months ago -- has made things harder for workers like Manibale and has forced the government to consider increasing the minimum wage to ease the pain.
If it does so the government knows it will contribute to inflation, which in March stood at a 20-month high at 6.4 percent, and will bring down growth just when the Philippine economy was showing signs of improving.
The sight of long lines of people waiting for hours to buy subsidized rice has exposed the economy's vulnerabilities, despite growth of 7.3 percent last year, the highest in three decades.
"There are business sectors that are having difficulty. And if the workers ask for additional wages, they (businesses) could collapse and the workers will be the ones to suffer," said Ciriaco Lagunsad, executive director of the National Wages and Productivity Commission.
Even conservative businessmen acknowledge the need for pay increases in the face of rising fuel, rice and flour prices. But they are against a legislated wage hike that would force them to raise salaries across the board.
Unions are demanding salary increases but are also aware that the resulting inflation could erase whatever gains higher wages might bring.
President Gloria Arroyo is said to be opposed to a legislated wage hike and instead wants any increase to be negotiated through the country's regional "wage boards" which are made up of representatives from business, unions and government.
But there is political pressure for Congress to impose a wage hike, particularly from the opposition in the legislature which is eager to seize any opportunity to upstage Arroyo.
In highly-urbanized Metropolitan Manila, where most of the country's large companies are based, the minimum wage set by the board is P362.00 a day.
The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP), the country's largest labor federation, is seeking an P80.00-raise in Metropolitan Manila.
Alex Aguilar, spokesman of the TUCP, acknowledges that the wage boards do "balance the interests of the general public."
"When it comes to wages, unions can be over-aggressive while employers are against any increase. Government is there to balance the issue," he said.
There is speculation the wage board will only allow an increase of about P20.00 in Manila.
Gwen Gailo, a records assistant and minimum wage employee, says "a small minimum wage increase would be meaningless. The prices would just go up."
Business groups are staunchly opposed to a legislated minimum wage increase.
"Let us not court disaster. A legislated wage increase would do more harm than good," said Sergio Ortiz-Luiz, president of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP).
"If lawmakers give in to populist demand for a legislated wage hike, many businesses will have no choice but to trim down their workforce," he said.
Victor Abola, head of the strategic business economics programme of the University of Asia and the Pacific says his statistical model shows that with every P10-increase in the national minimum wage, inflation will go up by one percentage point.
Higher inflation in turn will bring down economic growth, although he will not specify by how much.
Lagunsad, whose National Wages and Productivity Commission oversees the wage boards, said the government is trying to find ways to further help workers without raising inflation.
Arroyo has already announced plans to exempt minimum wage workers from income tax.
Such an exemption could save a minimum wage worker some P12,000.00 a year while costing the government some P900 million in lost revenues, said Lagunsad.
|
