At A Glance
- Makabayan lawmakers on Wednesday, July 30, filed a measure seeking to establish a national minimum wage of P1,200 for private and public sector workers.
Makabayan lawmakers on Wednesday, July 30, filed a measure seeking to establish a national minimum wage of P1,200 for private and public sector workers.
ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio and Kabataan Party-list Rep. Renee Co filed House Bill (HB) No.2599, as they cited an "irrationality of wage realization."
The measure also seeks to impose stiffer penalties for companies that will not follow the proposed national minimum wage.
According to the measure, a national minimum wage must be established, and the amount must be "sufficient for a worker to provide their family [sic] the basic and necessary expenditures that take into consideration all of their family's" various needs.
The national minimum wage rate was determined by the following:
• the cost to provide food, clothes, shelter, education, health maintenance, and non-food necessities
• the physiological, social, and other related needs of the worker and his or her family
• the movements in the consumer price index
• the cost of living and changes or increase in it
According to the lawmakers, the daily minimum wage of private sectors both in agricultural and non-agricultural prices shall approximate, if not equate, the prevailing family living wage of P1,200.
And it shall not prejudice other wage increases through collective bargaining, they added.
Violation of the measure, according to them, shall incur the company a fine equivalent to the 100 percent of the total wage increment of the worker multiplied to the number of unpaid working days; as well a suspension of their business permit.