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JFC says legislated wage hike to affect investments

By Ayen Infante

04/23/2008

The Joint Foreign Chambers (JFC), which groups the biggest foreign trade associations in the country, yesterday strongly opposed plans to legislate wage increases in response to skyrocketing food prices.

JFC said the move would even make the Philippines less competitive among countries in the region.

This was the position reiterated by executives of the JFC amid the ongoing talks on the proposed wage adjustments either through the regional wage boards or a legislative act.

“Within the region we are not competitive when it comes to wages, another wage increase will make us even less competitive because we are behind in terms of investments so a wage increase at this point is not helping,” European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP) executive president Henry Schumacher explained.

According to the JFC, a wage increase should be something negotiated by parties involved not legislated. “We will help where we can because negotiating now in a crisis situation does not make sense.”

On the non-wage benefits proposed by President Arroyo, the JFC stressed they would support the statement of the President only on a short-term basis. “We support the President on this as long as it would be treated as a temporary measure.”

“If we consider non-wage benefits it would only circum navigate the real crisis we have,” Schumacher added.

At present, there are several bills in Congress that support salary raise of up to P125 in the daily minimum wage or about the same rate that was pushed and approved by the House in December 2006 but the decision was taken back by the chamber due to alleged technicality issues.

The regional wage boards have been in charges of passing or dropping all requests for salary increases since 1990. The last wage hike imposed through legislated act was in mid 1989.

In the same briefing, the JFC has announced this year’s two Employment Expos which will be held in Glorietta Activity Center in Makati City from April 25 to 26 and on Aug. 13 to 14 at the Trinoma Activity Center in Edsa.

JFC said they were able to invite 60 participants from 18 industries to join the job fair. In 2007, the same activities were able to generate jobs for 4,300 out of 8,500 applicants.