DAVAO CITY, Philippines—A militant lawmaker on Friday urged the Duterte administration to implement a pay hike as it also called for the regularization of workers across the country days before the observance of Labor Day on May 1.
Anakpawis Representative Ariel Casilao said the granting of workers’ pay hike would “make a breathing space for workers to cope with the unabated skyrocketing of basic goods and services.”
He claims that the current P454 daily minimum wage in the National Capital Region (NCR), for example, was “insufficient” for a typical Filipino family of five because of the expensive food and services.
“These, on top of the looming adverse effect of the new tax measures that allow additional taxes to previously non-taxable products. This includes diesel which Congress is set to approve,” Casilao said.
Apart from increasing the workers’ raising basic take home pay, Casilao pointed out that the President must end the labor malpractice of “contractualization.”
This, as he explained that “contractual employment is an employment strategy that aggravates domestic unemployment by destroying regular and permanent jobs while exposing contractual or temporary workers to substandard and inhumane working conditions.”
“This coming Labor Day, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) reportedly will give financial aid to workers. While this is notable, the labor department should go beyond token gestures by heeding the real and immediate demand of the workers by raising their daily take home pay,” Casilao said.
Research group and think tank IBON Foundation estimated that 24.4 million of the total employed workers in the country need a measure that would provide them a decent living for the worker’s families. It suggested that a worker should earn P1,119 a day to provide the basic needs of their family.
Meawhile, Casilao, a member of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Labor and Employment, filed House Bill 556, which aims to promote regular employment and end the practice of labor contractualization. The bill also includes a provision that seeks higher fines and penal punishment to all employers that continuously practice contractual work scheme once enacted into law.
He also criticized the approval of DOLE Order 174 which maintains Sections 106 to 109 of the Labor Code that justifies the hiring of contractual workers.
“DO 174 not only legitimized but also strengthened the role of agencies that served as the third party to hire workers. In fact, it negates the employer-employee relationship thus ending the accountability and responsibility of the employer to its employee in terms of security of tenure, right to negotiate and obligations to provide worker’s benefit,” Casilao said. (davaotoday.com)
