What is the minimum wage and cost of living allowance applied in metro manila.?

Question

What is the minimum wage and cost of living allowance applied in metro manila and does cola is subjects to premiums or overtime rate? tnx

Answer 1

EVEN if the regional tripartite wage and productivity boards could come up with new wage orders increasing the minimum wages of the various regions across the country, the more difficult task is ensuring compliance.

The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines recently filed a petition for a wage increase of P80 daily in the National Capital Region. And the President just last Labor Day ordered the wage boards to work overtime studying the appropriate wage increases to help workers cope with the rising prices of oil and basic commodities. But there’s a lot more work to be done once those wage orders for increases have been handed down.

Again there is the matter of ensuring compliance, a protracted and tedious process of labor inspections whose effectiveness in the end might be suspect. In 2005, for instance, the Department of Labor and Employment inspected 19,539 firms and found that only 81 percent were complying with wage laws.

In similar surveys by the TUCP, we found that labor violations largely go unchecked and unresolved in the NCR and Southern Tagalog where millions of workers are employed. Other regions also registered high rates of labor standard violations, the highest of which is in the CARAGA region.

This is nothing new of course. Open defiance by employers of the country’s labor regulations has been a long-standing issue, one which goes back many administrations. DOLE has to crack the whip on its regional directors to force them to go after violators and file the necessary charges.

The labor secretary should order an evaluation of the performance of regional directors and labor justice officials to check whether they are performing their duties faithfully.

Ideally, DOLE should also deputize tripartite inspection teams composed of its own officers, employer and labor representatives to conduct inspections. These teams could help the labor department enforce its rules. On its own, DOLE doesn’t have enough manpower to conduct inspections and ensure compliance. The help of deputized tripartite teams would be of immense help.

Labor inspections are very effective. Usually, based on DOLE’s experience, two-thirds of companies found violating labor regulations, would, after inspection, make the appropriate remedies. They are forced to do so on-the-spot lest they suffer more penalties.

Also, the President should call on employer groups like the Employers Confederation of the Philippines to police their own ranks and take up the issue of compliance with their individual members. Those having a hard time complying with new wage orders could legally seek exemptions, rather than do so illegally.

For instance, the Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc or Philexport and ECOP have already said in the news that they will ask that indigenous exporters be exempted from another wage hike, because these exporters have already been heavily suffering from the global economic slowdown and the appreciating peso. It’s up to DOLE to grant exemptions.

The cooperation of employer groups is of paramount importance to ensure compliance. The TUCP signs social accords and agreements every year with employer groups like ECOP, and yet labor violations go unabated. It is apparent that employer groups have been remiss in their duties. The leaders of these groups should be responsible enough to do something about their erring members because they put at a disadvantage responsible employers who are complying with the minimum wage and other labor regulations. Sila sila ang naglalamangan.

Workers who toil at the very bottom rung of the wage ladder are eagerly awaiting the promised wage increases by the President. The expected pay hike would provide an important boost in the earnings of those who need it most. The question ahead for GMA’s economists is whether they will allow inflation to eat away at the expected modest gain. The TUCP, for instance, while hopeful that the P80 petition would be granted, is realistically expecting less than what is asked for, based on past experience.

Hopefully, the pay increase that would be granted by the wage boards would not be trivial, that it would be an amount that would mean a real difference in the lives of ordinary workers.

But after these pay increases are granted, would employers comply with them, and can the government ensure compliance? As I said, that is the tougher task ahead.