The struggle and campaign for workers’ P125 across-the-board wage increase nationwide continue amidst worsening crisis.

This morning the Kilusang Mayo Uno resumed its campaign for the P125 wage increase by propagating and displaying P125 flaglets in the major islands of the Philippine Relief Map located in Luneta or Rizal Park, symbolizing workers’ demand for a nationwide wage increase.

 

Wilson Baldonaza, KMU Secretary-General, said all workers need wage increase whether they are receiving minimum wage or above minimum wage. And all workers need to eat and live regardless of their location in the Philippines. “That is why our call for P125 is across-the-board wage increase nationwide. More important, it should be legislated in the Congress, not by the divisive Regional Wage Boards,” asserted Baldonaza.

 

Baldonaza added that while the government’s own study reveals that a family residing in Metro Manila needs P806 daily to live decently, the daily wage of ordinary worker in Metro Manila ranges only from P325 to P362.

 

“While many Filipinos are unemployed and the employed are overworked and underpaid, the soaring prices of basic commodities and services, meanwhile, goes on unabated. Since February 2008 the price of oil has gone up four times. And today we face an additional crisis of rice supply which triggers a crisis in the prices of rice. This is the calamitous consequence of the government’s policy of land-conversion, neglect of agriculture and farmers, and overdependence on anomalous rice importation,” explained Baldonaza.

 

“Thus, our demand for P125 wage increase is reasonable and justified. If granted, it would surely be a temporary remedy, but would provide immediate relief against the grinding poverty that we have been experiencing,” concluded the Secretary-General of KMU.