Citing the absence of any justifiable and objective reason behind it, the Negros Oriental Chamber of Commerce & Industry Inc. has registered its opposition for the proposed P161 and P140 across-the-board wage hike in Central Visayas.
In a position paper submitted to the Regional Tripartite Wage & Productivity Board, the NOCCI said the Consumer Price Index of Negros Oriental has not changed in the last three years.
Inflation rates for Negros Oriental have also been declining, and so are the average prices of gasoline and diesel pump prices.
While Negros Oriental is now part of the Negros Island Region or Region 18, wage decisions in Central Visayas still cover Negros Oriental in the absence of a RTWPB for the NIR.
The petitions for a wage hike were filed by the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines and Sentro/Alliance of Progressive Labor, the Cebu Midtown Hotel Employees Union, the Cebu Labor Coalition, the Lonbisco Employees Organization, and the National Union of Workers in Hotel, Restaurants, & Allied Industries-Montebello chapter.
NOCCI President Edward Du said the Chamber, through its position paper, is asking RTWPB-7 members “to reject outright the petition for wage hike, as there is no economic argument at all to increase the wages”.
Furthermore, power, water, and transportation fares (land, sea and air travel) in Negros Oriental have remained the same for the past two years since 2014.
Any increase in wages cannot be reasonably justified without any marked increase in public utilities rates, the paper read.
Even the prices of commodities in Negros Oriental such as rice, sugar, coffee, bread, cooking oil have not registered any remarkable increase from 2014-2016, according to NOCCI.
“Increasing wages now will not only be inflationary but might unnecessarily increase the cost of living in Dumaguete for fixed income local and foreign retirees (which are growing in number every year), thereby, negating Dumaguete’s unique competitive advantage as a preferred retirement destination,” NOCCI said.
Forbes Magazine, Yahoo, and the Overseas Retirement Index have said that Dumaguete City is currently the World’s 5th Best Place to Retire in, primarily due to the low cost of living.
Another reason for NOCCI’s opposition to a wage hike is that most, if not all, of the businesses in Negros Oriental are in the micro-small category, and do not have the capacity to pay an additional P161 or P140 per day wage increase for all its workers, NOCCI said.
Given that Negros Oriental is primarily an agricultural province, NOCCI’s position has always been for the government to focus its efforts on inclusive growth through effective job creation, continuous skills training, and increased productivity in the agri-marine sector, rather than annual wage hikes which are counter-productive, and do not necessarily translate into increased labor productivity, it added.
Bacolod, a highly- urbanized city, has a lower minimum wage rate at P298 per day than the not-highly-urbanized Dumaguete at P310 per day.
NOCCI said it believes this “anomaly” or “distortion” between the Bacolod and Dumaguete wage structure must be allowed to correct itself over the next two to three years, prior to implementing another wage hike for Negros Oriental, the position paper said. (JFP)
