Campaign for nat’l minimum wage for all employees slated

By Aldwin Quitasol

BAGUIO CITY — Public employees and private sector workers have joined forces in pushing for upgrading of their salaries and wages, outlawing of labor contractualization and condemnation of unfair labor practices.

Confederation for Unity, Recognition and Advancement of Government Employees (Courage) national president Ferdinand Gaite said  government employees including public teachers, health workers, the workers in the private companies and farm workers are now pushing the national minimum wage campaign earlier launched in Metro Manila.

He said there will be a change in demands for wage hike of the workers. He said private sector workers were asking for P125 wage increase while P6,000 for the public employees aside form the demands too of the teachers and the health workers.

“Para guhitan yung pinakaminimum na sahod ng manggagawa sa pribadong sektor at mga kawaning gobyerno pati narin ang mga guro at manggagawang pangkalusugan sa anumang rehiyon ng bansa, dapat P16,000 yung National Minimum Wage (To draw the minimum wage of all the private worker sectors and the government employees including the teachers and the health workers in any of the region of the country, P16,000 should be the national minimum wage) said Gaite. He said the campaign was based on the realistic living wage that workers should receive to cope with the actual cost of living.

He said that according to recent studies, P32, 600 a month is needed nowadays by a family with six members to survive. Gaite disclosed that based on the history of the struggle of the Filipino workers for higher wages, the highest achieved demand was only the half of the family living wage.

He said the P16,000 demand is nearest to the actual family monthly living wage. He said that it is obvious that the minimum wage is not even half of the living wage. “Sa government employees, P9,000 lamang ang pinakamababang sahod lalo sa mga non-teaching personnel,” (The lowest salary of many of the government employees is only P9,000) he said.

He said these include laborers, the street sweepers among others especially in the local government units.

Gaite cited importance of demanding for a P16,000 national minimum wage to all the workers in the country.

Gaite criticized the proposal of Sen. Antonio Trillanes seeking for the amendment of the Salary Standardization Law or the Republic Act 6758 which was first implemented in 1989. He explained that the law requires the standardization of the salaries of government employees. He said this was even amended two times.

He said in the proposal of Trillanes, the current P9,000 salaries of the public servants be adjusted to P16,000. He said this is somewhat good but he said this salary adjustment will come in four tranches. “Napakatagalang full implementation dito, ito ay limangtaon” (the full implementation is very long, it will be in five years) he stressed.

He also said that the ones to benefit more from Trillanes' proposal are not the ordinary government employees but the people in higher positions. He said that based on their computations, the high officials will get bigger percentiles or percentage of increase on their salaries.

“Sa tingin namin, para mas maging makatarungan ang pagbibigay ng wage increase ay una, dapat itaas ang minimum na sahod sa P16,000 agad at hindihulugan at isang bigayan dapat, pangalawa, yung mga matataas ng mga sahod ng mga matataas na opisyal ay huwag naming sobra, ikanga, they should moderate their greed,” (Our opinion is that for the wage increase to be just, first is that the minimum wage should be implemented and be given not in tranches but immediately as a whole and secondly, the already high salaries of the high officials should not exceed, sort of what the people say, they shoul moderate their greed) said Gaite.

He said they are setting the atmosphere this November to also launch the campaign for the end of labor contractualization both in the private sector and the government.