Leaders of about 15 labor unions yesterday aired their support for a petition for wage increases in Western Visayas, filed by the Philippine Agricultural, Commercial, and Industrial Workers' Union-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines before the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board, RTWPB labor representative Wennie Sancho said.

The RTWPB, headed by Labor Regional Director Ponciano Ligutom, held a consultation at the Worker Livelihood Center in Bacolod with the workers’ groups.

“We will continue to consult not only with unions but the nonunionized sector,” Ligutom said. Unions should not only depend on wages, they should also get benefits from Collective Bargaining Agreements, he added.

Sancho said RTWPB consultations on the petition will be held in Roxas City on June 13 and in Boracay on June 14, after which public hearings will be held in Bacolod and Iloilo.

The petition seeks to increase the present rate by P113.57 for commercial and industrial workers, P100.45 for workers in plantations with more than 24 hectares, and P96.35 for workers in plantations with less than 24 hectares, Ronald Esponilla, national executive vice president of PACIWU-TUCP andchapter president of PACIWU-TUCP-Vallacar Transit,said.

Esponilla said theincreases represent the lost daily wage of the workers based on the computation of wage hikes as provided under Wage Order No. RB6-20 series of 2012.

The real wage for commercial and industrial workers is now P163.43; for plantation workers, P144.55 and P138.65. Based on computation under the wage order, the nominal rates should have been P277, P245, and P235, respectively, he said.

Under WO No. 18 series of 2010, he said, the daily wage pay is P265 per day, plus P12 ECOLA, is P277.Considering the real value of the peso, and as confirmed by the National Statistics Office in its 2012 report, the real value of P277 rate is only P163.70, the petition said.

The NSO report further said that the P277 daily rate should be added by P113.57 to make it P390.57, just to restore the real value of the peso for the daily wage of the workers, it added.*CPG

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