Why are minimum wages always below the living wage?

One of the midnight decisions of the outgoing administration (aside from rushing the appointments of Comelec, COA, and CSC chairmen and commissioners, which were bypassed by the “Commission on Disappointments") is to rush the wage increases without much thought and deliberation. The labor sector feels insulted. The employers are complaining that such wage increases are going to "kill" the small and micro enterprises. There is no coordinated communication effort to explain each of the 17 wage orders all over the land.

The constitutional promise is a living wage. What is grudgingly granted is the barest minimum. The Philippine Constitution of 1987 promises to all Filipino workers not a minimum wage but a living wage. What is the difference between the two? The concept of living wage is taken from the global standards, formulated by almost 200 countries, members of the International Labor Organization. Living wage refers to that amount enough to provide a worker and his family basic needs like food, shelter, and basic medicines to maintain human dignity.

The amounts of minimum wages we provide our workers are definitely not enough for a family of four to have enough food, clean water, a decent home, and basic medical care. The prices of food and other prime commodities are controlled by the law of supply and demand. There is a constant and rapid upswing in said prices driven by the world market realities on the price of crude and oil. And yet, minimum wages stay pegged and the government is too slow and too inefficient in addressing the gaps between rising cost of living and the rapidly declining value of money and the workers' purchasing power.

The regional tripartite wage and productivity boards are not effective and because there are two supposed workers representatives, they often reach a deadlock with the two employers' representatives. And so, the final decision falls on the three government representatives, the regional directors of DOLE as chairperson and of DTI and NEDA as vice chairpersons. It is still the government dictating wages. The scheme of regionalized wages is also questionable because it’s based on a wrong premise. They assume that when wages are lower in Batangas, companies will transfer their factories from Manila to Batangas. What happened is that workers from Batangas go to Manila instead because wages are higher.

They peg the countryside wages lower than those in Metro Manila and other urban centers on the notion that the prices of goods there are lower. That is downright wrong. The price of rice in Caraga or in Palawan and Samar are much higher than those in Manila because imported rice from Vietnam and Thailand land in Manila and there is much more transport cost bringing them to the hinterlands. The wage boards are violating their mandate under RA 6727. Under Article 124 of the Labor Code, as amended by that law, the boards should consider 10 factors, one of which is the equitable distribution of income and wealth along the imperatives of economic and social development.

How can workers have a decent and dignified life with the pittance employers pay? In Metro Manila, there is a symbolic increase of ?33 making the minimum wage ?570 for industrial and commercial sectors. I don't know why they give ?533 to the agricultural sector, begging the question: Is there an agri farm in the NCR? Anyway, in an agricultural country, our government is still biased against farm workers. I think Western Visayas has a better arrangement based on size of establishments, not industry. For establishments with less than 10 workers, it is ?420 and for those with 10 or more, it is ?450. This is based on capacity to pay.

In southern Tagalog, the minimum wage is pegged at ?329 for those with less than 10 employees and ?355 for the bigger firms. In Gensan and Region 12, industrial workers get ?368 for industrial and commercial and ?347 for agricultural. Biased again. In Ilocos, it is a range between ?372 to ?400. In Caraga, it’s ?350. Here in Region 7, there is an increase of ?31 added to the current ?404 or a total of ?435 for Class A locations like Cebu City, Mandaue City, and Lapu-Lapu City. Toledo and Bogo are classified as Class B. The whole Negros Oriental, including Dumaguete is Class C and Siquijor together with our island towns are deemed Class D? Are these not institutionalized discriminations?

No matter how much, these are all below the living wage. What was promised is “Kapanatay ay Langit” but what is delivered is “Bato sa Buhangin”. And no one can explanation this to a confused constituency.