LABOR group Defend Jobs Philippines yesterday said the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board-National Capital Region (RTWPB-NCR) has rejected the petition for an across-the-board P100 emergency wage hike due to a technicality.
In a statement, Defend Jobs Philippines said the petition, filed last February, was junked not because it lacked merit.
“The said resolution cited a 2007 Supreme Court ruling stating that it is beyond the Board’s scope to grant an across-the-board wage increase,” said Defend Jobs spokesman Christian Lloyd Magsoy.
“The Board also said that it cannot give due course to the labor group’s petition as they have no jurisdiction on the matter,” he added.
Magsoy said the ruling is unacceptable considering the problems being faced by workers amid the pandemic.
“The resolution is nothing but a heartless, insensitive, and inconsiderate anti-workers decision as it has decided on technicalities instead of the merits, grounds, and humanitarian considerations,” he stressed.
“This Wage Board’s anti-labor decision had pulled the last straw on the recurring hardships of our workers during this COVID-19 pandemic in the light of extended community quarantines, lockdowns, rising prices of basic commodities and services, massive unemployment, termination, among many others,” added Magsoy.
Magsoy said they are studying the possibility of filing an appeal.
“Our call for wage increase and better working conditions for Filipino workers will not end with the Wage Board resolution,” Magsoy said.
