• CHERYL G. CRUZ
The Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MBCCI) is pushing for a 12-18-month moratorium on wage increases in Negros Occidental and Bacolod City, amid the RSSI infestation, power outages, and high fuel costs.
In a unified position paper and urgent petition for wage stabilization submitted during the public hearing on minimum wage adjustment Oct. 6 at Citadines Bacolod, the MBCCI said the moratorium is important “to prevent mass enterprise collapse and safeguard employee tenure amidst the state of calamity declared by the provincial government due to the RSSI agricultural catastrophe, power outages, and prohibitive fuel costs.”
George Zulueta, MBCCI executive director and the employers’ representative to the Regional Tripartite Industrial Peace Council (RTIPC), said at the public hearing that the red-striped soft scale insect has severely infested 32 percent of the province’s 61,000 hectares of sugarcane land.
“Kung may state of calamity, indi kita kapasaka presyo…pero ngaa mapasaka kita sang aton nga sweldo?,” Zulueta said.
He added that the situation in Negros Occidental is not similar to that of Panay and other areas in Western Visayas. “Wala to sila ya state of calamity, kami ya may ara so tani lainon nyo kami diri sa Negros Occidental.”
Because Negros Occidental and Bacolod City have been placed under a state of calamity, the government-mandated price freeze on basic necessities and prime commodities is in effect.
“Unlike other crises where commercial businesses can slowly raise consumer prices to absorb wage shocks, local enterprises are legally blocked from passing on costs,” the MBCCI stressed. “Management is forced to absorb 100 percent of the financial damage internally. This will greatly affect 95 percent of our members, composed mostly of SMEs, who largely depend on the viability of the agricultural and agro-industrial sector.”
In the position paper signed by Zulueta, Roberto Montelibano – PCCI Visayas NIR governor, and MBCCI president Juliana Carbon and secretary Ernie Pestano, they also took note of the recurring power outages that have affected productivity, and forced SME manufacturers, bakers, etc. to resort to generators, resulting in additional production costs due to prohibitive oil prices.
There is also a daily wage gap between Negros Occidental’s P550 minimum and Negros Oriental’s P500, since the two provinces remain under the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Boards (RTWPBs) of Western Visayas and Central Visayas, respectively, because the NIR Wage Board has yet to be established.
“This creates artificial labor migration, border friction, and confusion for our local MSMEs,” the MBCCI said as it pushed for the conduct of a unified Negros Island cost of living assessment, or a single local data baseline that reflects identical local fuel costs; and establish a shared agri-industrial sector classification, among others.
Negros Occidental cannot absorb any minimum wage increases at this time, the group said. “While we acknowledge the inflationary pressures faced by our labor force, forcing an artificial cash wage hike…will destroy business liquidity, force widespread hours compression, and inevitably trigger mass layoffs—permanently compromising the security of tenure we seek to protect.” | CGC
