made the call after holding a tripartite meeting with the Department of Labor and Employment.
Judy Ann Miranda, PM secretary-general, said that employers must help workers by not passing the burden to them. “Employers have benefited from recent economic growth without sharing the bounty with their workers. This was revealed in a Department of Finance study showing labor productivity grew by at least 50 percent, yet real wages were stagnant from 2001 to 2016. Now that there is a crisis, employers are morally obliged not to pass on the burden to their hapless workers,” Miranda said.
She added that a number of workers have been put on forced leave at the Mactan Cebu ecozone, while hotels and restaurants in Region 7 are experiencing a tourism downturn, resulting in the possibility of layoffs. “We cannot accept that workers are the last to benefit from economic progress but the first to sacrifice in time of crisis. Women workers are also disproportionately impacted by permanent or temporary loss of employment and income,” Miranda said.