The Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board announced a P21 daily wage increase on top of the existing P491 daily minimum wage for more than six-million minimum-waged workers in 17 cities and municipalities in Metro Manila.
The minimum wage in Metro Manila will become P512 effective next month (October).
Wage hike petitioner Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP) filed a P184 wage increase petition last June 6 on top of the existing P491 to enable workers and their families cope with rising prices of goods and services.
“The daily wage rate should be P675 for workers in the National Capital region,” ALU-TUCP spokesperson Alan Tanjusay said.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the National Wage and Productivity Commission earlier reported that the purchasing power of P491 has eroded to P354.51 by July 2017, an erosion of 27.79 percent.
Tanjusay said the P21 increase remains inadequate to meet the needs of minimum-waged workers to escape poverty.
“The P21 increase in daily wage remains insufficient for families to cope with rising prices of goods and increasing costs of goods. P21 is only 4.27 percent of the current P491. So it obviously did not lift workers out of poverty. Workers who helped built a high economic growth of 6.9 percent average Gross Domestic Product do not deserve this very small amount,” Tanjusay said.
“We have no other choice but to come and ask President Duterte to grant our long-standing request to him to provide a P500 monthly CCT-like cash voucher subsidy to minimum-waged workers who helped build our high economic growth,” Tanjusay said.
The proposal was submitted to Duterte on April 2017. Funded by the Office of the President, the cash voucher will be used by minimum-waged earners to purchase rice, groceries, and medicines.