The Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) urged the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board- National Capital Region (RTWPB-NCR) to dismiss the petition filed by the Association of Minimum Wage Earners and Advocates (AMWEA) seeking an “additional P688 per day for all covered workers in the NCR.”
In its Motion to Dismiss filed before the RTWPB-NCR, ECOP contended that the RTWPB is inhibited from entertaining said petition pursuant to Rule IV of NWPC Guidelines No. 01, Series of 2007, Amended Rules of Procedure on Minimum Wage Fixing.
Under the aforementioned NWPC Guidelines, any wage order issued by the RTWPB may not be disturbed for a period of 12 months from its effectivity, and no petition for wage increase shall be entertained within said period. The last Wage Order (Wage Order No. NCR-21) took effect on October 5, 2017.
“In the event, however, that supervening conditions, as extraordinary increase in prices of petroleum products and basic goods, services, demand a review of the minimum wage rates as determined by the Board and confirmed by the Commission (National Wages and Productivity Commission), the Board shall proceed to exercise its wage fixing function even before the expiration of the said period,” the NWPC Guidelines pointed out.
ECOP maintained that “there exist no supervening conditions that would allow the entertainment of the petition and necessitate a review of the wage rates prescribed under Wage Order No. NCR-21.”
