A BIG labor group on Friday accused President Benigno Aquino III of abandoning his commitment to uplift the economic conditions of millions of Filipino workers nationwide.
The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) who joined other labor groups in the Labor Day protest at Mendiola, Manila, slammed the President for his failure to respond to the eight-point agenda raised by the groups in 2012.
gathered on Mendiola in Manila to celebrate Labor Day on Friday.
Lino Santos
“President Aquino’s choice to go to Cebu today rather than confront and respond to the frustrations of the workers on this Labor Day is both an abandonment and a form of cowardice,” TUCP spokesperson Alan Tanjusay said.
Tanjusay said the President’s trip to Cebu was also a sign of the chief executive’s disconnect with the problems of the workers.
“It is now clear that he is still uninterested and disconnected with the… problems confronting the workers and besetting the labor sector,” Tanjusay said.
“With only 14 months left before his administration ends, the workers are expecting nothing from Aquino and what we are now doing is just waiting for the new president in 2016 to decide on the groups’ proposals,” he said.
Included in proposal are the streamlining of contractual job scheme, increasing the wages of private employees and government workers, lowering the cost of electricity and ensuring the reliability of supply, implementing an agro-industrial plan to create stable jobs and allowing public sector workers to form unions.