i am amused by the reasons they gave against implementing a
minimum wage law.
is it really too much to ask for $5/hr minimum pay? anything
less than that is exploitation, as it offers a pay that is below
par with the country's standard of living.
i dun see how adversely it could affect the competitiveness of
our economy, when it only benefits the lowest-income group in our
society. but not implementing a minimum wage law, it in fact allows
this disadvantaged group of people to go free-fall in terms of
wage.
if companies like Mcdonalds can get away with $4.50/hr wages
yesterday, $3.50/hr wage today, without any minimum wage law, it
can try to get away with a $2.50/hr wage tomorrow. do we want that
to happen?
and furthermore, how big can the affected group of people be? in
a typical company, people who currently make less than $5 a day are
the cleaners, and in fact, only the cleaners. these are really the
group of people who really needs and appreciates a payrise, for the
wage they receive now are not proportional to the amount of work
they are doing now. try cleaning the entire office yourself, and
you will see how tough it is.
not to mention that part-time maids, who are essentially doing
the same jobs as these full-time cleaners, are paid at an avg rate
of $10/hr. and to make a comparison, our fulltime cleaners, often
the elderly, are underpaid by 50%. this is a gross injustice in
pay.
and if you want to argue about competitiveness, how many
cleaners does a company employs anyway? and surely they can afford
to pay the cleaners and other low-wage workers more, especially
when singapore just posted a record double digit growth this
year.
and even with increased operation costs due to a mandatory
minimum pay, companies will still need to retain the service of
these individuals. you still need people to clean the building
right, unless the management is willing to clean the building
themselves.
those holding essential jobs will still be employed, e.g.
technician, repairman, security guards.etc. their services are
still required no matter the state of the economy.
also, those holding non-essential jobs will be laid off, i
agree, but this only help to boost productivity, doing away with
unproductive jobs, channeling labour into more productive
industries.
When u gauge wages by means of performances, skills, and
meritocracy such as education and contribution, you cannot put in a
mini wage to control over it, and setting mini wage is a very
sensitive issue, you set too high, business got away and we go
jobless, you set too low, peoples cannot afford the cost of living
and bosses will be more than happy to pay the low wages. Let wages
be flexible and reasonable to the economy fluatuation and
condition. In this way, you get a better balance to justify
wages
If MacDonald's set a low wage for their staff, and Burger set a
higher one, many good ones will go over to burger and that will
increase burger sale in term of good customer services, so
MacDonald's will need to up their wages to lure back staff, and in
this way, the staff gain from wage competition among competitor,
now if mini wage is set, both can join hand and give that mini wage
set.
So, what is the problem here that we need mini wage, do we have
young true beggars or people living in rubbish dump or that our
economy is very low as compare to others?? The meaning here is why
need to mess up the wage system here, whereby so far, it had served
us well and beyong
