Workers buying less food due to inflation — group

MANILA, Philippines — Workers nationwide are buying less food and this is likely to continue despite the grant of pay hikes.

“The lower GDP (gross domestic product) numbers demonstrate what the Ateneo School of Government calls ‘shrinkflation’ where families buy less and less food and try just to survive,” Associated Labor Unions (ALU) said in a statement. 

Citing government data, ALU claimed that there has been a decline in food and basic goods expenditures.

“That’s because people can no longer afford to buy these goods. Food inflation is at 9.7 percent, transport at eight percent, while electricity and fuel at 4.6 percent. The human face to that is widespread hunger and poverty of ordinary Filipinos,” ALU vice-president Luis Corral said.      

The four-week decline in oil prices and rice importation, he added, has not made a dent on the country’s 6.7 percent inflation.        

“November brings with it the specter of a transport fare hike and an 11-centavo-per-kilowatt-hour Meralco rate increase. This will have a knockdown domino effect on all other prices,” he noted.         

Corral said that even with the recent wage hikes, “worker families still don’t have sufficient income to purchase basic necessities because of a de facto policy to keep wages low.”         

He cited the National Wages and Productivity Commission (NWPC) data that showed the adjustments made since Jan. 16 to regional wages. In Metro Manila, the wage board adjusted the rate from P512 to P537 starting Nov. 22.

ALU said the P25 pay hike is only four percent  higher than the previous P512 minimum wage in NCR while inflation is further up at 6.7 percent nationally. 

 “On the average, wage boards acted only on the capacity of employers and businesses to afford the wage increases by adjusting the nominal minimum wage rates by P32 to P36 a day nationwide. This is too small for workers who help business and economy grow,” ALU spokesman Alan Tanjusay said.            

He added that the nationwide average daily minimum wage of P232 is inadequate for millions of poorly paid workers nationwide. 

Workers with labor-intensive jobs, Tanjusay said, need at least P800 to P850 a day in order to live above poverty threshold, cope with rising inflation and remain productive at work. 

“Government should now step in and also provide help. Government should do its part of the equation by helping and providing a life-saver through non-cash food voucher subsidy to help and save minimum wage workers drift from poverty to poverty,” he added.  

ALU urged government to provide a P500 monthly food voucher, non-transferable subsidy initially to an estimated four million minimum wage workers. 

“It is apparent that the recent wage orders will fall far short of meeting the 10-months-and-running price spike in basic goods suffered by worker families. Our subsidy proposal has widespread support including the leadership of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines and Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III himself,” Tanjusay said. 

He, however, clarified that this subsidy proposal is not to preclude them from filing a new wage petition.