DAVAO CITY – Labor groups criticized the recently approved Productivity Enhancement Incentive (PEI, Executive Order No. 181, s.2015) calling it as “empty” and “deceptive”.
The Alliance of Workers’ Union (AWU) in a statement said that President Benigno Aquino’s PEI “pretends to be a measure to help workers, but in essence, this is a one-time incentive, not a wage increase.”
The group claims that PEI is a “one-time grant, equal to either Php 5,000 or on month’s basic salary.”
President Aquino approved the PEI last May 15 aiming “to motivate employee towards higher productivity.”
But AWU said that it excludes laborers hired through job contracts and those paid on piecework basis, student laborers and apprentices, and job order related services.
“Instead of genuinely upholding the right of the workers to decent living wage, [it] offers a scheme which tries to conceal the severe inadequacy of the current minimum wage levels,” the group said.
“Government employees need wages that can support their basic needs, particularly amidst the continuing increase in the costs of goods and services,” AWU added.
AWU said that they reiterate their call for National Minimum wage of Php 16,000.
