CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – Private and public workers in Central Luzon have forged themselves into a group called All Workers’ Unity (AWU) in their bid for wages that could fetch them no less than P16,000 a month.
AWU convenor Gary Hernandez, who is also the president of the Workers’ Alliance of Region III (WAR 3), said theunited group now wants national wage increase that would junk the Wage Rationalization Law of 1989 and the Two- Tiered Wage System which was decried as anti-labor.
He said that the demand for wages amounting to no less than P16,000 monthly was based on studies on how much a family could reasonably survive on. This amount, he noted, is even only half of the amount determined by a study as needed for the basic needs of an average worker’s family.
Hernandez said the Wage Rationalization Law based minimum wages on regional situations so that in Central Luzon, daily wages range from P215 to P336, much lower than the P1,086 daily pay that a study recommended for the basic survival of a worker’s family.
He said AWU wants these laws scrapped for being anti- labor. Hernandez noted that on the other hand, the Two-Tiered Wage System bases the worker’s pay on the flood wage based on poverty threshold and the worker’s performance.
AWU, whose members met yesterday at the Holy Family Academy in Angeles City, also urged Congress to criminalize contractualization of workers which, he stressed, deprives workers of permanent work status and unionism.
Hernandez said AWU was formed by leaders from WAR3, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, LEAGUE, Solidarity of Worker’s Network, Pumiblas, and Anakbayan. “We, workers, must unite and close ranks, launch moves that should include other sectors such as the youth, so as to scrap anti-labor laws,” he added.
