Anakpawis solon presses for legislated P750 minimum wage
Published Apr 29, 2019 10:16 pm
By Charissa Luci-Atienza
Anakpawis partylist Rep. Ariel “Ka Ayik” Casilao on Monday voiced out the continued demand of workers, peasants, and urban poor for a P750 national minimum wage as he counted on the incoming 18th Congress to prioritize the approval of the pro-workers' measure.
Anakpawis party-list Rep. Ariel Casilao
(MANILA BULLETIN) He expressed hope that House Bill No. 7787, the proposed P750 national minimum wage, would be given due attention in 18th Congress. He cited that the P750 national minimum wage “has become a national people's movement against exploitation and oppression by foreign monopoly and oligarchs in the country.” “Workers, agricultural workers, peasants, urban poor, and other sectors around the country have been demanding for the P750 national minimum wage, thus, stressing its national and democratic character against the plunder of labor by imperialists and its local cohort oligarchs,” Casilao said in a statement. Casilao, who recently joined a caravan of Kilusang Mayo Uno-Ilocos and Anakpawis in Laoag City, Ilocos Norte, laments that majority of the workers in Ilocos are contractual, informal, and earning lower than the set minimum wage at P340 a day. In the town centers, the majority are semi-workers in transport, retail, and other services, he noted. “They earn less but pays as much or even more than those in Metro Manila,” he stressed. Casilao also expressed concern about the plight of Central Luzon workers, saying that they have been victims of the “no union, no strike” policy and contractual labor such as in Clark Special Economic Zone and the case of Hanjin workers in Subic. While those capitalists facing strong workers' unions carried out union-busting such as the case of Stronghold Steelworkers in Pampanga, he said. “In mega-Manila areas and Calabarzon, there was an upsurge of workers' actions against ENDO and for P750 national minimum wage. This is a breakthrough movement when they were usually suppressed by anti-worker provisions of the Labor Code,” Casilao said. He said that in the Visayas, agricultural workers belonging to the National Federation of Sugar Workers have been seeking wage increases for decades, especially when sugar workers are usually “sakada” or whose security of tenure is totally neglected. In Mindanao, the workers of Sumifru dared to camp-out in Manila to press the Labor Department to execute the order to regularize workers, he cited. “Filipino workers are fed up of being treated as slaves and marginalized, thus, the national and democratic movement for P750 national minimum wage, will certainly transform into a social upheaval, to press the Duterte government against the wall, for being the champion for the interests of foreign imperialists and local oligarchs,” Casilao said. He called on workers to join the mass actions led by KMU on May 1, in Manila and other protest centers around the country to call for an end of labor contractualization and seek salary increases.
Anakpawis party-list Rep. Ariel Casilao(MANILA BULLETIN) He expressed hope that House Bill No. 7787, the proposed P750 national minimum wage, would be given due attention in 18th Congress. He cited that the P750 national minimum wage “has become a national people's movement against exploitation and oppression by foreign monopoly and oligarchs in the country.” “Workers, agricultural workers, peasants, urban poor, and other sectors around the country have been demanding for the P750 national minimum wage, thus, stressing its national and democratic character against the plunder of labor by imperialists and its local cohort oligarchs,” Casilao said in a statement. Casilao, who recently joined a caravan of Kilusang Mayo Uno-Ilocos and Anakpawis in Laoag City, Ilocos Norte, laments that majority of the workers in Ilocos are contractual, informal, and earning lower than the set minimum wage at P340 a day. In the town centers, the majority are semi-workers in transport, retail, and other services, he noted. “They earn less but pays as much or even more than those in Metro Manila,” he stressed. Casilao also expressed concern about the plight of Central Luzon workers, saying that they have been victims of the “no union, no strike” policy and contractual labor such as in Clark Special Economic Zone and the case of Hanjin workers in Subic. While those capitalists facing strong workers' unions carried out union-busting such as the case of Stronghold Steelworkers in Pampanga, he said. “In mega-Manila areas and Calabarzon, there was an upsurge of workers' actions against ENDO and for P750 national minimum wage. This is a breakthrough movement when they were usually suppressed by anti-worker provisions of the Labor Code,” Casilao said. He said that in the Visayas, agricultural workers belonging to the National Federation of Sugar Workers have been seeking wage increases for decades, especially when sugar workers are usually “sakada” or whose security of tenure is totally neglected. In Mindanao, the workers of Sumifru dared to camp-out in Manila to press the Labor Department to execute the order to regularize workers, he cited. “Filipino workers are fed up of being treated as slaves and marginalized, thus, the national and democratic movement for P750 national minimum wage, will certainly transform into a social upheaval, to press the Duterte government against the wall, for being the champion for the interests of foreign imperialists and local oligarchs,” Casilao said. He called on workers to join the mass actions led by KMU on May 1, in Manila and other protest centers around the country to call for an end of labor contractualization and seek salary increases.