Anakpawis cited a study debunking fears of ECOP that a P125 wage hike could lead to inflation. It said a government survey for businesses showed that the hike would only cut 12.3 percent of profits of big businesses.
“The P125 increase would not lead to compelling price increases nor closing down of shops,” said Anakpawis Rep. Ariel Casilao.
“The government data even exposed that with 35,000 firms surveyed, raking up a total profit of P1.58 trillion, on the average each firm enjoyed a profit of P45 million, but still they oppose a measly wage hike, already gnarled by past inflation,” Casilao said.
He lamented in a statement that “these rich capitalists are incapable of empathy with the poor workers, worshippers of profit to the point of urging the President to relieve labor executives.”
“They are callous of the fact that current wage levels are inadequate to support the daily living of the workers’ families,” he added.
Casilao is a labor leader of National Federation of Labor Union-Kilusang Mayo Uno in Southern Mindanao Region before becoming a representative of Anakpawis partylist.
“The capitalists themselves decide to increase prices in order to preserve their revenue margins, hence, it is their own greed for profit that triggers inflation,” he said.
He added “that they have recurrently increased prices in the past, thus, it is off beam to solely attribute it on the legitimate and overdue workers’ demand for a wage hike.”
Casilao also lamented that employers are “treating workers as non-human, as mere costs on their accounting books, oblivious of whether they are already dying of hunger, malnutrition, illness, as long as they swim over their pool-size profits.”
