Group bats for wage recovery increase as inflation stays high

Amajorlabor group on Friday again called for a legislated “wage recovery increase” following the release of official inflation figures for April.

The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines said that while the inflation rate dipped in April to 6.6 percent from 7.6 percent in March, core inflation hardly budged from 8 percent in March to 7.9 percent in April,

Core inflation strips out food and energy prices which are prone to large fluctuations.

Carlos Miguel Onate, TUCP Legislative officer, cited the high inflation in pitching for TUCP Party List Representative and Deputy Speaker Raymond Democrito Mendoza’s House Bill 7871 or the proposed “Wage Recovery Act of 2023.”

He said the bill intends to recover the lost purchasing power of consumers.

“Yung atin pong concern is that maaaring inflation roller coaster pa rin ito sapagka’t marami kasing factors na kailangan tayong i-consider lalo may paparating na El Niño,” Onate said.

The bill calls for an across-theboard nationwide hike of P150 in the daily salary of workers and employees in the private sector.

Onate said workers can no longer wait for regional wage boards to act on wage hike petitions as well as other proposals to mitigate the plight of consumers.

However, he also said this bill will not preclude the filing of wage hike petitions before wage boards.

“Since ito po ay isang wage recovery effort, yung ating mga legislated wage hike po does not preclude po yung filing ng wage hike petitions through the regional wage boards kung kaya’t muli, yung atin hong urging and we are calling on the regional wage boards to immediately act now on all wage hike petitions,” Onate said.