BAGUIO CITY – Thousands of domestic workers and employees in the formal sector are simply waiting for a reasonable time before realizing the increase in their respective wages after the Cordillera Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board (RTWPB-CAR) approved the increase in the wages of domestic workers and those employed in the formal sector recently.
Augusto Aquillo, RTWPB-CAR board secretary, said the separate wage orders that were successively approved by the wage board were already transmitted to the National Wages and Productivity Commission (NWPC) for approval and confirmation.
However, Aquillo declined to divulge the approved increases in the wages of domestic workers and the employees of those workers in the formal sector until the Commission shall have approved the two wage orders that were transmitted for approval.
“What we can assure our domestic workers and the employees in the formal sector is that there is an increase in the current rate that they are receiving. Relative to the amount, we are not yet at liberty to divulge how much is the increase because the two wage orders are still being deliberated upon by the Commission,”Aquillo stressed.
The RTWPB-CAR official expressed confidence that the Commission will approve anytime the two wage orders that were already transmitted so that it will be published and take effect 15 days after publication so that daily wage earners and the domestic workers will have a timely gift for the celebration of Labor Day on May 1.
Currently, domestic workers in highly urbanized cities and first-class municipalities receive a monthly pay of P2,500 while those in other areas in the region get a monthly pay of P2,000 from their employers.
For those employed in the formal sector, workers in the non-agricultural sector get P285 daily wage once their workplaces are located in the Baguio-La Trinidad-Itogon-Sablan-Tuba-Tublay (BLISTT) area while those working in the micro-sector in BLISTT receive a daily wage of P270.
On the other hand, workers in the non-agricultural sector outside the BLISTT receive a daily wage of P260 while those in the micro-sector are getting P255 daily wage.
The RTWPB is mandated by law to mutopropio act on the need to increase the daily wages of workers in the domestic sector and formal sector or act on petitions for a wage increase to be filed by various labor groups in the region.
The 7-man wage board is composed of representatives from the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the labor and management sectors which recently convened regularly to tackle the issues arising from the need to increase the prevailing daily wage and the monthly compensation of domestic workers in the region.
Aquillo claimed the deliberations of the wage board were anchored on the prevailing factors that affect the living condition of the people, particularly the prevailing prices of basic commodities, the existing inflation rate in the region, among others, before the decision to grant the wage increase was achieved.
By HENT