DAVAO CITY – A labor group puts the blame of President Benigno Aquino’s poor ratings to the government’s inaction on demands for wage increase and job creation.
In a statement on Wednesday said labor coalition Nagkaisa called Aquino’s flagship poverty-mitigation and jobs-creation programs such as the Community Cash Transfer Program (Pantawid Pamilya Program) by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the Community-based Employment Program and the Sustainable Livelihood Program by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) since 2010 as “dismal failure.”
“The sorry living condition of the workers is reflected in the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) 2012 Family Income and Expenditure Survey released on October 24, 2013 showing 70 percent of the 41 million labor force only receives a monthly income of P5,750 as against a family needs of P8,778 a month set by the government,” the group said.
Nagkaisa is pushing for Aquino to approve the Salary Standardization Law 4 (SSL 4) in raising government workers’ pay and lobbying for reforms in the wage-setting mechanism in regional wage boards for the private sector employees.
In December 2014 Labor Force Survey, there were 11.5 million workers complained of insufficient wage compared to 11.1 million in 2013. Aside from growing underemployment rate due to inadequate wage, Nagkaisa said Aquino’s satisfaction ratings suffer due to lack of employment opportunities. The same survey showed 2.5 million are without jobs in 2014 compared to 2.6 million in 2013.
Nagkaisa said they anticipate a worse picture “because the two surveys did not include the situation in Yolanda-affected region 7.”
