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.
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