CLARK FREEPORT -The labor alliance “Unity for Change Now (U-Win) has filed with regional tripartite wage boards of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) a petition seeking P750 daily pay for all wage earners in the country.
This followed the re-filing by the Makabayan bloc in Congress of a bill seeking such daily wage after a similar bill failed to make it in the 17th Congress, said Anakpawis leader Ariel Casilao.
“The U-Win petition is another collective initiative of various workers’ groups calling for a uniform national wage increase. In the face of skyrocketing prices of goods and services due to the effects of TRAIN law. A just wage increase is necessary and imperative,” Casilao said in a statement yesterday.
He stressed that “raising the daily minimum wage to P750 should serve as an immediate relief to workers to cope with rising cost of living.”
But Casilao noted that “as always, the Employers Confederation of the Philippines ECOP) has brazenly opposed the wage hike demand, dangling the bogey of ‘close-shop effect’ if wages are raised. For ECOP, any wage increase is bad for business.”
Anakpawis deploed ECOP’s position as “selfish and heartless.”
“Workers should not fret over ECOP’s position, instead they should relentlessly push for significant wage increase that would benefit minimum wage earners. Workers should not be contented with the government and employer- approved ‘salary increase’. They should exercise militant and collective efforts to assert for a P750 wage increase across-the board nationwide,” Casilao also said.
