The  “Unity for P125” was formally launched yesterday at the UP Manila Little Theatre with more than 300 delegates in attendance. This is a broad alliance of trade unions, migrant workers, church people, legislators, academics, human rights advocates, youth and students and urban poor organizations, among others, to lead the campaign for a P125 legislated wage increase across-the-board, across-the-country. 

Objectives, forms of actions, campaign phasing, and the formation of an adhoc council of leaders  were discussed and approved. A Press Conference was held prior to the general assembly launching. 

“The Arroyo govenment continues to disregard the workers’ demand for a P125 across-the-board wage hike.  It is the social responsibility of all rights advocates to join the fight in calling for an immediate economic relief for the majority.  Our alliance would need not only the participation of the workers but also the support from all sectors of society, including the middle sector,”  stressed Ver Eustaquiao, one of the main Convenors and  Chairman of Union for the Masses for Democracy and Justice. 

“It is unsurprising that the Arroyo government and its allies in Congress continue to hinder the passage of House Bill  1722  that provides for a P125 wage hike, while business groups such as the the Employers Confederation of the Philippines  and Philippine Chamber of Commerce Inc. push for the wage issue to be addressed by the regional wage boards.  These are precisely to avoid a legislated wage increase and to undermine the workers’ struggle for a national minimum wage that fulfills their needs,” declared Bishop Gabriel Garol of  UCCP.   

“With the worsening national economic and political situation, the workers voice is still ‘a voice in the wilderness’ in dire need of support  from all sectors such as this ‘Unity for P125’ alliance,” added Bishop Garol.    

“The most recent pronouncement of the National Wages and Productivity Commission  that workers should not worry because the approved P10 to P20 regional wage increases would be more than enough to cushion the impact of the inflation is the height of mental darkness and insensitive attitude of the bureaucrats,” said Elmer Labog,  Chairperson of Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU).  

“Keeping  wages low is a policy of the government as it uses cheap labor to attract foreign investors into the country.  This is illustrated by subcontracting schemes, which are more profitable as they depress wages, practiced by transnational corporations and other foreign firms in the country.  Adherence to neoliberal policies subject wages and other labor arrangements to the so-called market forces. This ultimately means wages are kept low and workers are all the more exploited and oppressed as capitalists are allowed to decide how much to give workers,” declared the resource speaker Prof. Danny Arao of UP Diliman. 

“Through the years, not even one percent of closed establishments cited as reason the ‘minimum wage rate increase’. The data show that the closures and retrenchments can be rooted in the economic crisis besetting the country, and not the wage increases – little as they are – that have been granted through the years,“  added Labog of KMU.   

“We are undeceived by the subsidy and dole out programs of the national government that only seek to temper the growing unrest of the people, and to project publicity for its own political agenda”, concluded the P125 Unity Statement. # # #