KMU enraged over Malacañang’s no wage hike pronouncement for May 1

urges solons to deliberate on wage increase, financial assistance for displaced, instead of ChaCha

KMU expressed strong indignation to Malacañang’s advance Labor Day message that promises no wage hike for workers, reasoning out that “job security and job generation is its top priority.”

“Arroyo intends to force into our brains the logic that wage increase and job security are contradictory interests, and one cannot possibly be achieved together with the other – the same propaganda that big businesses have been continuously claiming. But we urge the public to never ever buy such an unreasonable argument, for big capitalists actually reap more profits by purposefully laying off workers and cutting wages at the same time, using the global crisis as a fast excuse,” said Elmer Labog, KMU Chairperson.

“Substantial wage hikes are more justified and necessary especially now in the time of the crisis because we need to cope up with spiraling costs of commodities and worsening living conditions.

“To give up the fight for a wage hike means to succumb to the dictates of the big capitalists, and to surrender the fight of the workers for a more decent life, which KMU will never stop pursuing. It is sad that phony labor unions such as the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines mouth the same arguments of the government and the big business against wage hikes, betraying the cause of the workers they dare pretend to represent,” Labog said.

KMU is now also seeking talks with small and medium Filipino businessmen to discuss possible arrangements for the P125 wage hike. “It is the greedy big businessmen who mouth wage cuts and other flexible labor schemes, while some SMEs are actually open to wage hikes.”

Labog also slammed Malacañang’s statement that if there should be wage increases, these should come from collective bargaining processes between workers and their employers. “Unions have been driven to near extinction by collaborative policies of the government and big business that now, only 6 percent of the country’s labor force is unionized. And among the unions, there is also a widespread case of CBA deadlocks or wage freezes in CBA negotiations as capitalists also use the global crisis as an excuse not to enforce any wage hike,” Labog added.

KMU and the Anakpawis Partylist led a piket rally at the House of Representatives today to urge solons to deliberate on the much needed wage hike and financial assistance for displaced workers, instead of the Arroyo-backed Charter Change.

Anakpawis Partylist Representative Rafael Mariano is expected to deliver a speech today on the people’s Labor Day demands.

“Instead of railroading the Arroyo-backed ChaCHa, our lawmakers should instead deliberate on the much needed wage hikes and financial assistance for displaced workers,” Labog said.