THE labor group Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP) will ask for a P157 across-the-board wage increase when they meet with President Rodrigo Duterte on Labor Day, because of the falling value of daily wage and rising cost of basic goods and services in recent months.
“We have already relayed our call for a monthly P500 cash subsidy to the President due to widening poverty and hoping that this would be granted,” ALU-TUCP spokesperson Alan Tanjusay said.
Tanjusay said: “For the first time in the history of the labor that we are asking in one time a cash subsidy from government and a wage increase from employers and capitalists to help workers cope with worsening poverty and rising cost of living.
“Living conditions of workers who have been helping our economy grow is growing worse. Something is terribly wrong in this equation.”
He said the Office of the President had received for Duterte the proposed ALU-TUCP subsidy through its Emergency Labor Empowerment and Assistance Program targeting minimum wage earners by having government issuing cash vouchers to qualified minimum wage earners disbursed by the Social Security System, accredited trade unions and regional offices of the Department of Labor and Employment.
He said they were also going to file an additional P157 wage increase for workers in Metro Manila.
The value of minimum wage earners daily wage has fallen by 26 percent against the 2015 Poverty Threshold standard amount of P393 a day needed by a family of 5 to survive.
The National Economic Development Authority set the Poverty Threshold Level or the standard amount needed by a family of five for them to survive in a month in the year 2015 was P9,064 or P393 a day.