Superlative greed

DEAD WRONG. That is Clark Development Corp. EVP Philip Jose Panlilio for saying that “CDC salaries are competitive, if not the most competitive in the region and even in Metro Manila in both the public and private sectors.”
Panlilio was ruing over the rejection by the CDC union of the P3,000-increase offered to the workers by the government corporation.
Yeah, Panlilio is dead wrong.
CDC salaries are not merely competitive: they are superlative, by degree of comparison with those obtaining anywhere else in the country.
Consider the daily minimum wage: P287 for Central Luzon, P362 for Metro Manila, and P541.62 for CDC.
The lowest ranked CDC worker gets P7,462 monthly. The minimum wage earner in the region gets P6,620.
Then the other CDC perks – monthly: P1,000 rice allowance, P1,000 cost-of-living allowance, P1,500 personal economic relief, hazard pay of P500-P750 depending on the degree of exposure to danger; annually: P8,000 clothing allowance with a P500 annual increase up to year 2010, P5,000 cash gift, 13th and 14th month pays, and Provident Fund benefits.
Still more: P80,000 health care program coverage to include the dependents of CDC workers, and a life insurance of P650,000.
Superlative, indeed!
So what have the CDC workers extraordinarily done to merit the P7,000 increase they clamor for in their daily noontime black-shirted protest assemblies?
On a cost-benefit ratio – that is the amount of manhours they spend in their jobs and the (in)effectiveness of their performance ranged against their pay – it would be safe for a functional job analyst to venture that CDC workers would be below par the standard of just compensation as clichéd by some wag in that aphorism: “If at the end of the day, the salary you receive is equal to the job you perform, then you are an honest man.” Or some such quotation.
So, there may be a lot of investments getting to Clark. So should the CDC workers get more than their share of the income from these investments? Now, have we forgotten that the CDC is a government corporation? That its income become part of the national wealth that is supposed to fund public services?
Given the labor situation in the country, the P3,000 increase offered by the CDC management to its workers is already scandalous, nay, iniquitous! For the CDC union to ask for more is GREED, capitalized as a sin.
Ay, using the jargon of the probinsiyanong Intsik, the P3,000 offered makes “moderate greed.” So the P7,000 demanded is immoderate, nay, superlative greed?
If there is a workforce in Clark that merits a raise in their salaries, it is that of the Clark International Airport Corp. As they stand now, a CIAC manager’s pay is on the level of a CDC assistant manager’s. And unlike, his CDC counterpart, the CIAC mid-level boss does not enjoy free housing at Clark.
There clearly is some inequity there. Given that Clark is aviation- driven and therefore its full potentials for development are in CIAC hands. In the very able hands of President and CEO Chichos Luciano and EVP and COO Alexander Cauguiran, if I may assert.
Back to more lamentations from Panlilio – the CDC EVP, not the Reverend Governor – “Giving in to all demands of the members of the union at present will be detrimental to the operations of the corporation and the Freeport including its locators and the community at large and that will include all the workers especially the rank and file.”
Not so dead wrong is Panlilio here. But he could have been more right if he simply said that giving in to the union will spark a revolution inside Clark and in all labor fronts – a revolution of raised expectations and demands, finding precedence with the CDC surrender to its union.
If CDC workers get this much, what will prevent other workers, both in government and in private, in and out of Clark, from demanding the same?
Workers, unite! The red flags unfurl! Troop to the picketline! Bangon sa pagkakagupiling…Bangon kauring alipin…