Date: May 2003

No Wage Hike

For the third consecutive year, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo failed to announce any adjustment to the country's daily minimum wage on May 1, which marked the 100th anniversary of the celebration of Labor Day in the Philippines.

Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas said the president was leaving to the Tripartite Regional Wage Boards any decision whether to raise or not the mandated basic pay of Filipino workers.

While the law provides for a mechanism in adjusting workers' wages, it was not uncommon among past presidents to announce a nationwide wage hike during the celebration of abor Day, particularly when an election was drawing near. Political analysts are punting that a wage hike announcement will be made in May next year and just in time for the next presidential election.

For the moment, the government, in trying to appease the labor organizations by junking a proposal from the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc. (FFCCCI) to impose a 10-year moratorium on labor strikes.

Secretary Sto. Tomas acknowledged the rights of workers to conduct labor strikes within the parameters set by law. The labor secretary, however, assured businessmen that the labor situation in the country is improving. She noted that the number of strikes went down to 36 incidents in 2002, the lowest in 21 years.

For her part, President Arroyo said that as a gift to Filipino workers, she would try to bring down the cost of electricity by further reducing the purchased power adjustment (PPA), which is charged by power distribution companies on top of actual energy consumption.

The Supreme Court had earlier ordered the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) to refund some P28 billion in overcharges to 3.4 million households in Metro Manila and surrounding provinces.

Meanwhile, the Labor Turnover Survey (LTS) conducted by the labor department show that the average labor turnover rate among top corporations climbed to 0.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2002 from -0.68 percent in the third quarter of the same year. Labor turnover refers to the difference between new recruits to and separated workers from companies.

The report said that in the fourth quarter of 2002, the proportion of newly hired workers (accession rate) reached 4.36 percent of the total number of workers employed. This figure was higher than the proportion of workers terminated or separated at 3.86 percent. In the third quarter of the same year, the accession rate was 4.12 percent while the separation rate was 4.8 percent.

For the whole of the second semester of 2002, the separation rate (4.33 percent) still offset the accession rate (4.24 percent), resulting in an average labor turnover rate of 0.09 percent.

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