US Pres. Barack Obama’s call for a minimum wage hike in his State of the Union Address last Feb. 13 should serve as a wake-up call to the country’s legislators and Pres. Noynoy Aquino, the national labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno said.
Elmer “Bong” Labog, KMU chairperson, said “It shows that workers’ call for a significant wage hike, like the P125 across-the-board wage hike that workers have been clamoring for, should be heeded immediately. It also shows that government policies that imposes a wage cut and wage freeze, like the Two-Tiered Wage System, should be scrapped immediately.
Whether Obama’s call is heeded by the US’s legislature or not, it shows that even the minimum wage in the world’s wealthiest and most powerful country has been depressed for decades and needs immediate and significant adjustment, labog said.
“It calls attention to the growing clamor among the workers and people of the US, who enjoy a standard of living higher than that enjoyed by Filipinos, for a significant wage hike in order to cope with the prices of basic goods and services which have increased significantly through the years,” he said.
According to a White House fact sheet, raising the hourly federal minimum wage to $9.00 from $7.25 by the end of 2015 would return it to its highest inflation-adjusted value since 1981, under President Ronald Reagan. Labor advocates in the US, however, argue that if the $9.00 minimum wage were implemented this year, the inflation-adjusted value of the minimum wage would still be more than 2 per cent lower than its level in the late 1960s.
Obama’s statement calls attention to the fact that the minimum wage in the Philippines has increasingly lagged behind the cost of living across the years. An April 2012 study of independent think-tank Ibon Foundation for example shows that the minimum wage in the National Capital Region, the highest in the country, has decreased in proportion to the cost of living from 50 per cent in 2001 to a mere 40 per cent in 2011, Labog said.
Obama is no pro-worker president, however. He has consistently advanced the interests of the financial oligarchs and monopoly capitalists in the US. He was merely forced to make the call because of the protests of the workers and people of the US. He aims to stem the tide of restiveness and protests in his country, which is being wracked by soaring unemployment and falling standard of living amidst the current grave economic crisis, Labog explained.
Labog said his group vows to intensify our protests for a significant wage hike in the coming weeks and months.
“We are calling on Pres. Aquino to certify as urgent House Bill 375, or the P125 Wage Hike Bill and junk the Two-Tiered Wage System. We are also calling on the leadership of the House of Representatives and the Senate to convene an emergency session to pass this most urgent and long-overdue of bills,” he said.