NEW ORDER ON INCREASE OF NCR MINIMUM WAGE OUT IN JULY

A new wage order will be announced on July, workers calling for wage hike (Photo courtesy of Philippine Star)

At the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board at the Occupational Safety and Health Center in Quezon City, a public hearing was attended by the workers’ welfare advocates holding a rally raising the passage of wage increase not less than P150 for all workers in the country.

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) reported that minimum wage earners in the National Capital Region (NCR) might likely to get an increase in their daily salary by mid-July. This is after the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board public hearing held today and will announce its decision by July 16 which was the anniversary of the P40 latest wage order. 

During his Labor Day speech, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. mandated that the rates of the regional minimum wage be reviewed sixty days before the anniversary of the most recent wage order.

DOLE Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma stated that the NCR wage board will determine whether raising the minimum wage is necessary after considering three petitions for wage increases.

“All deliberations of the wage board are on increases, though some would say they are small and not enough. But the bottom line is there is an increase,” he said.

According to Laguesma, the review was started by the RTWPB in the NCR even without a petition for a salary increase. The workers' petitions have been denied by the RTWPBs for the last 35 years. The workers requested a P100 salary increase last year, but the RTWPB only approved P40 without providing a justification.

On May 24, the board received a petition seeking an increase in the minimum wage from the Unity for Wage Increase Now. The group demanded that the daily minimum wage for employees in private companies in the NCR be raised by P597. Workers in the NCR reported that the current daily minimum wage rate of P610 is much less than the living wage.

Laguesma noted that when making decisions, RTWPBs must weigh the needs of workers’ and employers’ capacity to pay in their decisions.

Source: Philippine Star

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