While labor organization Kongreso Ng Mga Empleyado ng Pilipinas Inc. (Empleyado) recently voiced support for the senate bill requiring private sector employers to provide their workers “14th Month Pay,” they also called for the bill to include all employees.
“The law should not distinguish employees [between the] private and government sector,” the group said in a statement. “This is a ‘win-win compromise’ for both the employer, the employee, and the government.”
Senator Vicente Sotto III, who was in Bacolod City recently for the city government inauguration, said the additional pay was necessary since “13th month pay is gobbled up by Christmas expenses.”
“We need extra earnings in the middle of the year to help ordinary workers with school and medical expenses,” the senator added.
Meanwhile, the group also called themselves “advocates for job generation in order to address unemployment;” however, their release did not provide a response to critics who claimed the law could potentially hurt small business.
According to a UNTV report earlier this week, Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) President Sergio R. Ortiz-Luis, Jr. said the law has the potential to “break the operations of small, micro, and medium businesses; cause inflation to spike; and the Philippines to lose its competitiveness against its Southeast Asian peers.”
The ECOP official also pointed out, “Adding a 14th month pay requirement to workers would push employers to increase the prices of their products and services.”
Last month, Empleyado participated in the “Walk for a Cause-Para sa Batang Manggagawa” in Bacolod City, an event of the Department Labor and Employment that seeks to end the practice of child labor./WDJ