DOLE: NCR wage board merged salary hike requests after rejecting TUCP petition

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said Tuesday the National Capital Region’s Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board has consolidated three petitions seeking salary hike after it thumbed down Trade Union Congress of the Philippines’s (TUCP) petition seeking to raise minimum wage to P1,007.

In a statement, iDOLE-NCR regional director Sarah Buena Mirasol said the RTWPB has resolved to consolidate three petitions seeking between P213 to P250 increase in the daily minimum wage for Metro Manila workers.

Mirasol also chairs the wage board.

The DOLE said that a petition for an across-the-board wage adjustment of P470 a day filed last March 14 by the TUCP was not acted upon by the board since “an across the board increase is not within the jurisdiction of the (wage board) nor authorized by R.A. 6727, its mandate being limited only to minimum wage fixing and determination in the Region.”

Republic Act 6727 is the law that created the wage boards to fix minimum wages on a regional level.

However, the DOLE said NCR’s RTWPB received a fresh petition from the TUCP for the same amount of adjustment but no longer across the board, which will be considered during the board’s next meeting.

Meanwhile, the NCR wage board consolidated three other petitions for the conduct of joint proceedings to expedite the process of wage hike determination.

“The board received three wage hike petitions and upon review, we have issued a resolution to consolidate all petitions and proceed to public hearings. We gave all the petitions due course,” said Mirasol.

The petitions were those filed by the Unity for Wage Increase Now (UWIN) on November 25, 2019 and Metro East Labor Federation (MELF) on March 4, 2022, both seeking P213 increase, and another one from the Solidarity of Unions in the Philippines for Empowerment and Reforms (SUPER) on March 4, 2022 with a proposed increase ranging from P213 to P250.

“The petition filed in 2019 was already given due course. We have conducted consultations; however, we were prevented from pursuing public hearings because of the pandemic,” said Mirasol.

The DOLE NCR chief also said: “We now have a schedule for consultation with the labor sector on April 8, the second one will be on April 19 for the employers group, and after that we will issue a notice of public hearing to invite not only the labor, and employers sectors but also other organizations.”

Following the instructions of Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III, Mirasol said the board will also take into consideration balancing the interest of the workers and the employers amid the current crisis in Ukraine and the rising prices of oil and other prime commodities.

Bello said last month that the minimum wage in the NCR may no longer be enough for workers and their families due to the increase in the prices of basic goods.

He then ordered RTWPBs across the country to hasten the review of minimum wages.—AOL, GMA News