Workers ‘padlock’ NCR wage board, call for abolition of wage board system

Still enraged over the P22 hike in the minimum wage for Metro Manila workers granted by the NCR wage board, workers led by Kilusang Mayo Uno “padlocked” the board’s office in Manila and called for the abolition of all wage boards in the country.

“After two years of non-stop price increases and wage freeze, wage boards insult us workers by giving us a mere P22 increase – and only in Metro Manila at that,” said Joselito “Lito”Ustarez, KMU executive vice-chairperson.

Ustarez also noted that in 2009, the combined net earnings of major companies surged to P358 billion as reported by the Philippine Stock Exchange. This is in stark contrast with the zero wage hike in the same year.

“Once again, the Filipino workers and people are seeing the wage boards for what they really are: tools of the capitalists to keep our wages down. Filing petitions for wage hikes in these boards is really a waste of time.

“That is why they should be abolished. Maintaining them only serves the interests of capitalists in dodging calls for a substantial nationwide wage increases,” he added.

KMU said the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Boards (RTWPBs) or regional wage boards were established in 1989 to “rationalize” wages – to make these conform to “market forces” operating in particular regions. Their creation does away with the previous practice of setting wages and their increases at the national level – through laws legislated in Congress and approved by the president.

“Regional wage boards have been used by the government and capitalists as tools for dividing workers and weakening calls for across-the-board nationwide wage hikes,” the labor leader said.

Ustarez said KMU has refused to direct calls for wage hikes to any regional wage board since its record speaks of a gross anti-worker and rabid pro-capitalist stance on the issue of wage increase.

“Wage boards said their mission is to ‘ensure a decent standard of living for workers and their families.’ This is sheer doublespeak. For more than 20 years now, the regional wage boards have only made our standard of living far from decent,” he said.

Since 1989, regional wage boards have granted on an average of only P10.75 year-on-year, an amount which is not at par with the surge in prices of goods and commodities per year.

The labor leader said they would rather return to the status quo ante, when wages and their increases were fixed at the national level.

“Of course, we also had a hard time achieving substantial wage hikes back then. But the regional wage boards have only made it extremely harder.

“That is why we urge the incoming Aquino administration to abolish these wage boards and heed the workers’ demand for a legislated P125 nationwide wage increase,” Ustarez concluded.