BY ADRIAN P. NEMES III
Most employers in Western Visayas are not keen on increasing the salaries of workers, Wennie Sancho, labor representative to the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board 6, said yesterday.
Sancho said this was the result of the virtual meeting they held recently, but he said he is optimistic that this may change when they hold their final deliberations next week.
He said the nominal wage in Region 6 is P395 daily but the actual take-home pay is only P300.99. The continued erosion of the workers’ purchasing power is a deathblow to their economic survival, Sancho added.
He said workers in the private and public sectors are suffering from another form of economic virus, like wage deterioration, social displacement, hunger and poverty, but the government is looking the other way when the workers would demand for a wage hike and other forms of benefits.
In a statement, the General Alliance of Workers Association said that denying the workers their right to a wage increase is oppression and an added form of injustice.
The government failed to fulfill its mandate that the State shall afford full protection to labor, which is recognized as the primary social economic force while the well-being and economic security of the laborers was also not protected, they said.
In Western Visayas, minimum wage workers are earning P310 to P395 daily depending on their work classification, under Wage Order 25.*
