It is high time that the Regional Wage Board should be abolished for its failure to address the issue of providing an immediate economic relief for the workers in the private sector in Western Visayas at this time of economic crisis, a press release from the General Alliance of Workers Association (GAWA) said.
Wennie Sancho, GAWA secretary general, said that R.A. 6727, the law that created the Regional Wage Board should be repealed as it is no longer relevant to its wage-fixing functions at a time when the workers needed it most. We need action on the wage related issues and not petition.
Labor should lobby for the filing and passage of the Fuel Wage Shock Protection Law to institutionalize automatic wage relief for all minimum wage earners in the private sector. The minimum wage workers are suffering not only in Western Visayas but across the country due to the immediate loss of their purchasing power when prices of diesel, gasoline and basic goods due to external shocks such as conflicts in the Strait of Hormuz, he said.
The existing wage setting mechanism set up by the Regional Wage Board requires months of petition, hearing and wage consultations leaving the workers defenseless while prices go skyrocketing. It is the duty of the State to protect the erosion of the workers wages in line with the Constitutional mandate that the State shall afford full protection to labor. It is the duty of our legislators to assess what bills they should file to defend the rights and welfare of the workers, Sancho said.
The proposed Fuel Wage Shock Protection Law is a seatbelt on wages. It triggers a temporary shock allowance automatically when fuel, food prices breach set levels. No petition is needed to the Regional Wage Board. No delay due to wage hearings and consultations, he said.
The payment for this shock allowance should be shared – 50 percent by the employers, 30 percent by the government via excise and value added tax holidays, 30 percent from Wage Shock Fund paid from oil windfall taxes. It should cover all minimum wage earners regardless of status or position, no exception. This must be asserted by the labor sector because there is no wage order on sight and the workers could no longer wait, Sancho said.
If there’s money for confidential intelligence funds, and there is money for unprogrammed projects, there should be money for the Wage Shock Fund to keep the workers alive when the excessive oil price hikes hit the primary social economic forces that were left behind by the government. No increase in wages, no financial aid, or whatever scheme that would keep the workers’ heads above water, he added.*
