Workers brace for SONA, call for P125 wage hike

More than two weeks before Pres. Aquino’s State of the Nation Address, workers of a union affiliated with labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno held a picket in front of the company’s gates today to call for a P125 across-the-board wage hike.

Some 50 workers of Coats-Manila Bay, a textile factory in Marikina City, joined the picket which also condemned the company’s management for refusing to implement a six-year old wage order increasing the workers’ wages.

“Weeks before Pres. Aquino spreads lies about the state of the nation, we want the world to know about the real state of the country’s workers,” said Henry Cervantes, president of the Pinag-Isang Lakas ng mga Manggagawa sa Coats-Manila Bay, a KMU affiliate.

“Workers are clamoring for a P125 across-the-board wage hike because capitalists are giving workers a hard time getting wage increases that are due them,” he added.

“Now, more than ever, workers need a significant wage increase to cope with the rising prices of basic goods and services,” he said.

The workers vowed to join the protest actions on July 23, the day that the president will deliver his third SONA.

Wage Order No. 12

PIGLAS-MBC is protesting the Coats-Manila Bay management for allegedly colluding with labor arbiters of the National Labor Relations Commission in order to deny workers the implementation of Wage Order No. 12.

The wage order was approved by the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board in 2006 and was affirmed, after a long legal battle, by the Court of Appeals in 2010.

It was discovered by workers only in March 2010 but its implementation by the National Labor Relations Commission was stalled by the refusal of labor arbiters to handle the case.

“We condemn the Coats-Manila Bay management and the NLRC for colluding to deny us workers a long-delayed wage increase,” Cervantes said.

“The Aquino government is blind to what’s happening on the ground: capitalists are doing everthing to deny wages any wage hike,” he added.