The Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines on Friday appealed to President Rodrigo Duterte to intervene and raise the suggested 25-peso increase in the minimum wage to P100.
“In behalf of all the poorly paid four million minimum-wage workers and their families in Metro Manila who are suffering due to the high inflation rate, we are appealing to President Duterte to raise the minimum wage to at least P100 a day,” ALU-TUCP spokesman Alan Tanjusay said in a statement.
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The labor group said the workers and their families had been longing to taste the fruit of genuine change.
“Now is the time to make the businesses’ profits and the country’s economic wealth to truly trickle down to the troubled workers,” Tanjusay said.
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The ALU-TUCP says P100 a day will change the current daily minimum wage of P512 to P612 a day”•an amount that would enable workers and their families to get by.
“We urge you Mr. President, not to totally believe what all your economic managers are saying. Your economic managers are just lip-servicing you and are not telling you the whole truth,” Tanjusay said.
“What they are telling you are half-truths to artificially make you feel good, but in reality, the masses are drifting in poverty made worse by the implementation of TRAIN.”
The ALU-TUCP is blaming the Employers’ Confederation of the Philippines for allegedly announcing prematurely the decision of the wage boards to keep wages at the barest minimum.
