Choo Zheng Xi / Editor-in-Chief
“If we would like to see Singapore moving up as one of the most developed countries in the world, and costs increase accordingly, lower income Singaporeans might need a minimum wage to survive.”
A minimum wage law was a constant theme of the late opposition icon Mr Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, and more recently canvassed by ex-NTUC Income CEO Mr Tan Kin Lian. But yesterday the minimum wage was canvassed by an unlikely proponent: businessman and People’s Action Party (PAP) Member of Parliament, Mr Inderjit Singh.
Speaking in his personal capacity at the Institute of Policy Studies’ (IPS) Singapore Perspectives 2009 seminar, Mr Singh said that cheap foreign labor had depressed wages, and this hurt low income Singaporeans the most.
“As we brought in more and more people, many from India and China, not just at the top level of talent, but also at various levels including unskilled workers, we depressed wages of Singaporeans”, he said.
Noting that the problem of low wages was exacerbated by a high cost society, he added:
“Our costs continued to go up. So we caused a double whammy for Singaporeans who had no choice but to live with the high cost of living while having to accept lower wages”.
Minimum wage a possible solution
One way of solving this problem, he said, could be a minimum wage policy.
Speaking to TOC after his speech, he acknowledged that a minimum wage would be an additional cost to business, but that the government was in a position to draw up a scheme to make it workable.
Noting that the government was “unlikely to move very quickly on this”, he nevertheless emphasized its importance.
“If we would like to see Singapore moving up as one of the most developed countries in the world, and costs increase accordingly, lower income Singaporeans might need a minimum wage to survive.”
One way of doing it, Mr Singh suggested, was “either we incentivize companies to implement it, or the government has to supplement wages to a minimum level.”
Mr Singh favoured an incremental introduction of a minimum wage policy, as companies might not immediately adapt well to such a policy in the current economic downturn.
To begin with, the government could work within the existing Workfare Income Supplement (WIS) framework to level up wages. Mr Singh suggested including workers earning up to $2,000 in the scheme. The current scheme covers only those earning up to $1,500. He also suggested giving payouts on a monthly basis instead of the current six-monthly payout.
Growth at all costs a mistake
In the course of his presentation, Mr Singh was critical of several of the aspects of the Singaporean growth model, which he characterized as “growth at all costs”.
He raised the problem of high business costs not matched by productivity, tracing it to the government’s fixation with moving up the manufacturing value chain too quickly.
Mr Singh told the audience of 700 that a growth driven policy had “dislodge[d] Singapore’s economy, workforce, and other infrastructure”. He felt that a “slower rate of development, encouraging the stretching of domestic capabilities and technologies, would keep industries in Singapore for a longer period of time”.
He was also critical of what he called the government’s approach to “disincentivize companies from trying to keep many of what the government considered as no longer attractive capabilities in Singapore”, which he felt had led to too high a turnover in Singapore’s core competencies and had “made it difficult for Singaporeans and firms to cope”.
Moving ahead, Mr Singh proposed a model he felt was more sustainable:
“The suggested model should involve a moderation of cost while Singapore’s core competencies are strengthened…We must avoid any “boom and bust” type of policies, which go for broke in good times and slow down when the world economy grows.”
——-
Note:
In 2008, Mr Inderjit also criticised the “growth at all cost” policy. He “pointed out that the “grow-at-all-costs” policy of the government might have overheated the economy and worsened the income divide… “I feel a significant part of the inflation has been caused by factors that we could have controlled.
“In the last two years, the government has contributed to inflation by allowing multiple cost increases, both directly or through policy changes that resulted in cost increases.
“The end result is an era of very high cost increases, high inflation not supported by enough wage increases, especially for the lower and lower middle income Singaporeans and companies.” (Channel NewsAsia)
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Read Channel NewsAsia’s latest report (20 Jan 2009): Average household income up across all income groups in 2008.
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In my speech at the Speakers’ Corner on 7 December 2008, I also highlighted the need for a living wage to be implemented. The speech is here: http://singaporesocialactivist.blogspot.com/2008/12/we-citizens-of-singapore.html. It is the only way forward for the marginalised segment of the resident population to move forward.
Perhaps its time to start seriously lobbying for one, Ravi? =)
Now,i like how he criticize the grow at all cost policy.
The average Ah Seng Singaporean know all that this MP is saying and it is just that he has a great mental gymnastic twist to say it.
The hordes of foreigners are taking away jobs and which Sing worker does not know that. Once they are entrenched in an industry then no Singaporean can enter it. Take construction. No matter how Ah Beng you are and how much you flex your biceps the Singapore employer does not want you. Why? You are a Singaporean. For you to ask for this job, you must be mad and I Mr employer will not employ you. The garmen have their time and tested cliche and say that Singaporeans do not want that job.
Try other low level jobs and it will be more or less the same.
Suppose you get a job and all your mates are foreigners then you boss would not know how to treat you. He kicks them around but he cannot really do that to you. What to do? You a Sing fellow and a Ah Beng has upset the apple cart. He thinks you are a troublemakerand he will get you sacked.You are back to square one.
All this reinforce the garmen cry that the Ah Beng will not do the jobs that the foreigners are doing and so more foreigners need to be brought in.
Suppose you happen to have a high IQ and from an Ah Beng you studied software online and got a Monash BSc in computing. You will have more or less the same trouble with the thousands of Indian software engineers who would work for for 800 dollars per month but you a Sing fellow demands 2 000 per month. So, you will sit at home for as long as two to three years and there are such cases.
The garmen say the Sing engineer must compete on a world wide scale. It means, in the local context compete wit the cheapest software engineer, might be cheap and quite useless but still hang of a cheap from India and you must work at that level. Below a worker’s pay. Which Sing software engineer would accept that?
The garmen say we must be competitive internationally. It implies that a Sing software person should work for 800 dollars per month.
The answer to this and one of them is to leave the country. Go West young man.
I don’t think minimum wage is an answer. Look at karang gunis, their “wages” are already low enough yet there are “foreign talents” competing with them.
There’s no easy answer to this problem. you reap what you sow.since the govt want foreigners to boost the economy and hold down inflation, they must be prepared to compensate the losers in this competitive game such as workfare(though it is still not ideal). Minimum wage will not deter the competitive foreigners, they are more hungry than Singaporeans.
Who can offer a solution to this globalisation problem can get a Nobel prize surely.
Interestingly i was speaking to a fren about locals vis a vis foreginers, what he told me , shocked me. He said , he cant afford to fire foreigners ,only locals as they cost more.
having mimimum wage is fine. The reason why most business pay low is becuase , cost wise, thet are squezed harder than a dried up lemon in the sahara .Our biz cost is so damm high, high rental. hight cost of tranport, etc etc . So the only variable left is wages, so what to do, sqeeze the only lemon that can be squeeze, which is the workforce, that is, you & me
Just wish to point out that one way unscrupulous employers can get around the minimum wages policy is to offer the same minimium wages to foreigners and ask the foreign workers to pay them “kick-back”. In this way the employers would still be able to hire foreign workers at a lower cost compared to hiring a local. This is already happening in the case of some S-pass holders, where the workers are supposed to earn at least $1,800, but the employers in fact pay them less than that.
What we need is a “Steady State Economy”.
http://www.steadystate.org/CASSEFAQs.html
Herman Daly, an ecological economist, argues that much of the growth that we see today is “uneconomic”. What is uneconomic growth?
http://www.steadystate.org/CASSEDownsides.html
* Jobless growth, where the economy grows, but does not expand opportunities for employment;
* ruthless growth, where the proceeds of economic growth mostly benefit the rich;
* voiceless growth, where economic growth is not accompanied by extension of democracy or empowerment;
* rootless growth, where economic growth squashes people’s cultural identity; and
* futureless growth, where the present generation squanders resources needed by future generations.
We are probably at peak oil now – the point in time when the maximum rate of oil extraction is reached – and the consequence of this is the end of growth. The sooner we realise this the better.
http://www.postcarbon.org/end_growth
Let all levels of Society Compete Internationally!
Search for the most capable Ministers with lowest pay from the world to serve in our government.
Is it a good idea!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage
Employers would not like this idea.
Without such a law,
they can no longer hire from overseas the LOWEST waged worker they can find or LOWEST waged worker they prefer.
sigh…. like this not pro business ? I no no leh , how ?
ERRATA : should be WITH such a law….. instead of WITHOUT….
Come on, guys. Use some common sense. Seriously, only bottom-tier jobs will be affected by minimum wage laws. Minimum wage definitely would not be applicable to Singaporeans working in the professional services’ sectors.
How many of us are honestly willing to work in the construction industry and/or clean sewage pipes? I encourage Singaporeans to, just for one day, live the life of a Bangladeshi immigrant. Maybe then, we wouldn’t treat them so badly and actually pay them more than $2.50 an hour. Re: (4) Hohapata, I have not heard of Indian software engineers working here full time for $800 a month. Most of them who accept that kind of money are either students working part time, or those learning the tools of the trade. Also the way you say things like ‘might be cheap and quite useless but still hang of a cheap from India and you must work at that level’ implies a great deal of ethnophobia on your part. Most Indians (and other foreigners) who come here work very hard, and are often exploited by their employers. Instead of empathising their plight and campaigning for better work conditions for ALL workers (including legislating minimum wage), we blame them for stealing our jobs when all they want to do is provide for their families.
How many of us have said really nasty things about people from PRC, Bangladesh, India and Indonesia? How much of that criticism is truly deserved? Yes they work like mad, they ‘smell different’, they don’t speak good english, they work for cheaper pay, but is that really their fault? Shouldn’t we be taking the employers to task for hiring them at a cheaper pay? Instead of demanding that two people doing the same job be paid the same, why are we demonising these people who come here, work hard and contribute to the economy and just try to make a living?
Inderjit Singh (and other PAP ministers) are beginning to detect that more and more Singaporeans are becoming sick of the same old nonsense spouted by the same old ministers. Right now they are still scared of saying too many things that might anger the Father and the Son, but more and more are seeing the writing on the wall. If things continue to go this way, their cushy MP jobs would be at risk very soon, so they are slowly trying to dissociate themselves from the ‘official’ party line so when the time comes for their mandate to be reviewed, they can say they ‘dared’ to stand up to the Father and hopefully win a few more votes. Expect more and more MPs to start saying things that the Father and Son may not like.
Does one honestly think that Inderjit and his ilk give a rat’s rootie-patootie about the common man? They will say whatever it takes to get them elected, and give all sorts of excuses for not following up their words with action. It’s a tried, tested tactic in politics.
Governments will do anything people let them get away with – Hades
hehehe!
Why don’t they try capping wages? The billions saved could help lower cost of operations, is it not true?
But again which MIW wants to volunteer?
Why didn’t the writer mention the fact that Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) was the first political party to propose the introduction of minimum wage?
http://yoursdp.org/index.php/the-party/our-manifesto/the-distribution-of-wealth
YES!!! Finally someone has the balls to say what many of us sensed was wrong with the economy. I dunno your motive, Inderjit, but THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.
MC,
Sorry that escaped my attention, thanks for bringing it up. JB might have mentioned it earlier when he was the member of Anson, but SDP was probably the first to include it in a party manifesto, will have to double check that, not too sure myself.
Zheng Xi
All I have to say is;
They have done screwed our country, well.
That’s right ! He hits the bull’s eye ! The “growth at all cost” policy is making this place more expensive than ever. We cannot survive if we are getting the same low pay as these foreign workers because we are spending things here in SG whereas these workers are sending the money back home to feed the whole family. How to compare ?
Perhaps I should start looking for jobs in Middle East, EU or America and start earning their currencies and send them back to SG so my family here can be better off because of the exchange rate ?
21/1/09
Minimum wage is not necessary for Modern Singapore which practises an Open Economy which determines the real wage vs demand and supply for labour (professional, white and blue collar workers). Modern Singapore has been very successful in this and let us continue, perhaps fine tuning our present Labour Laws like imposing a 80% work force must consist of local Singaporeans (this I mean Singapore born and Singapore citizen). Many developed nations have minimum wage yet they face more worse labour and social problems and they continue experiencing more influx of cheap foreign labours.
Regards
Andrew Chuah
Even Batam has a minimum wage.
We keep hearing the same old stuff every recession, namely, high business cost,
neglect of SMEs, heavy portion of disposable income for property, negligible domestic demand etc. Everytime we emerge out of bad times, it is the same formula again from our MIWs. No amount of feedback can sway their “we know better” attitude.
“grow-at-all-costs” policy… I think the question is whether the growth really substainable and also is the growth “real” growth…
#13 smallvice585:
Come on, guys. Use some common sense. Seriously, only bottom-tier jobs will be affected by minimum wage laws. Minimum wage definitely would not be applicable to Singaporeans working in the professional services’ sectors.
Since people and businesses are related, the cost may be further passed on to other businesses or consumers, and so causing inflation. For example, these may mean higher public transportation cost or prices at food courts.
The question is how much the impact of minimum wage would be. If it is insignificant or if people are prepared to take the inflation, then it is an easy solution to implement.
Internationally, there is no agreement among economists (see the wikipedia reference in #10). A better estimate can only be obtained with real local statistics.
As mentioned earlier [1 #61], the issue is about channelling more financial resources to let the senior citizens have a better life. Money has to come from somewhere. The question now is where.
By imposing a minimum wage, it comes from businesses or consumers, perhaps indirectly and unknowingly. Personally, I prefer getting it from higher taxes so that the process is more transparent, and the impact on the economy is minimised. Richer people pay more taxes anyway.
[1] http://theonlinecitizen.com/archives/4810
#9 TrueBlood Singaporean:
Search for the most capable Ministers with lowest pay from the world to serve in our government.
This is difficult to do. National boundaries present a more problematic issue for getting people into the government. But getting Bangladeshi low-skilled workers is easier.
#14 Hades
I encourage Singaporeans to, just for one day, live the life of a Bangladeshi immigrant. Maybe then, we wouldn’t treat them so badly and actually pay them more than $2.50 an hour
But bear in mind that getting $2.50 per hour here may well be much better off than what they would otherwise be getting back at their home, if they can find a job at all.
I don’t mean exploiting foreign low-wage workers. We want to make sure is that they have a correct expectation of what they will be getting into, and also that they are not ill-treated.
This is possible, practical and safe.
As people have said, only bottom-tier jobs will be affected by minimum wage laws.
I just hope Max Wage not be capped. Why?
More Corruption if max wage capped.
as BELIEVED by some.
It would be interesting to have scientific proof that high wage will prevent corruption. Where is the proof? Where is Mas Selamat Kastari who, alleged Singaporean TERRORIST , is STILL AT LARGE and no one has any clue where the …. he is.
Dear TOC
We hope it is okay for us to carry your article at our site in full.
http://tkl100kpetition.blogspot.com/2009/01/pap-mp-floats-idea-of-minimum-wage.html
Thank you.
Taxes won’t be the best way out CJC. it is not as transparent as you think as there will be quite an amount that is lost as implementation cost, just like the question brought up in the past, how much of the tax that was collected through GST that is suppose to help the poor was use for that purpose?
Although an increase in price level aka your inflation is inevitable if wage rate is increase, however, with an increase in wage rate, at least that’s a more reliable way of seeing the poor getting more income.
“I prefer getting it from higher taxes so that the process is more transparent, and the impact on the economy is minimised.”
increasing taxes will reduce your disposable income and that has a significant impact on the economy since it may reduce A.demand and may increase interest rate in the future and the cycle will roll on and on. so i have to disagree with your increasing income tax has min impact on economy view, since that’s not true. So increasing interest rate is also not the best way out since the impact is there.
Volunteers,
No problem… go ahead.. :)
Hidden Taxation in Singapore.
Most of you didn’t notice the change in contribution rates for the 3 accounts in CPF right?
With the latest contribution rates, it is very difficult for a 35 year old single to get a 4 room flat servicing only through his ordinary account contributions. If you don’t believe, just work it out on an excelworkbook. This is because as one grow older, the contribution rate to the ordinary account get reduced very quickly and it is very difficult for you to service the loan through the special account. So, you would end up paying cash into the CPF/HDB “blackhole”.
Funny thing was when Mah BT announced the fact that singles could buy 4 rooms and above, it sounded like a gift to singles, when in fact, it is very difficult for singles to buy these flats if they don’t want to contribute cash. The HDB grant for singles used to have a criteria that your pay cannot exceed 8000. Now, your pay cannot exceed 3000. So effectively, Mah has taken away your privilege. The surprising thing was we had a record number of single MPs at that time in parliament and they approved this. Don’t know if they represent the singles’ interest.
Also, everybody knows CPF is not enough for retirement. Even the ministers acknowledge it. The weird thing is the NTUC chief not only approves the reduction of salary ceiling for CPF contrribution, which naturally implies a smaller sum at the age of 55 than before, he also approves the MOM minister (then) reduction of special account/medisave account interest rate reduction to 2.5% from 4% in 2011 onwards. This means, your cpf earns a lower interest rate than before. I wonder how that would help making your CPF account at 55, bigger than before they make the changes. So, even if you managed to work consistently until 55, at a decent pay, say fixed, you would end up less money in the CPF than before they make the changes (inflation not even taken in account yet), meaning you have to save harder than before the changes to make up the short fall, you are effectively left with a small amount to spend day to day. If you factor it the fact that you would be tax every time you spend because of GST, you basically don’t need to spend, if you are a in an average/low paying job. So, if you don’t die until 55, you are basically a working machine.
With all the changes and the colour brochures from CPF, you end up having to work harder for your retirement. One would have thought, it is better that they don’t make the changes. right?
Worst still, there a minimum sum scheme that restrict what you can take out from the system whose projection value change every year. Would that be a big hindrance to planning for your own retirement since you have no idea how the amount of one source of your retirement saving would be even if you work consistently.
So, they have introduced all kinds of uncertainty and they blame you for not planning and saving hard enough… no wonder a “safer” route would be to encourage you to work harder and longer, thinking that you can control your career. If you tell that to those who were laid off recently, they would show you the middle finger.
So, with the changes, they have taken all kinds of rights from you and in return make you situation worst off.
They really take us as fools…
In its 2001 GE manifesto, the SDP called for a minimum wage law. It urged voters to support its “minimum wage plan” to pay the workers fair wages for their work. At that time Inderjit and Tan Kin Lian, both cadres of the PAP, were busy advancing, in partnership with NTUC, how Singapore could allow more foreigners into the country to further suppress wages of our workers.
Your half-baked article raises a number of doubts and suspicion.
#31 SZ
I’m not arguing that increasing tax has no side-effects. But my points are:
a) Money for social welfare has to come from some where. If not from tax, it comes from the market, i.e. businesses and more often consumers.
b) If minimum wage has insignificant impact on inflation, then implement it. Easy.
c) If not, then I prefer channelling it from higher taxes because getting it from the market is no more transparent. For example, if we get it by inflating cost, we won’t know how much of inflation is caused by social welfare.
d) If the issue is about ensuring the funds are used for senior citizens, then the relevant discussion should be about it. For example, making the process more transparent.
e) If the issue is to get an increased of social welfare spending for senior citizens at all, then what makes you think getting it by imposing minimum wage is any easier, i.e. my issue is about where to get it from, not to get it or not.
f) The argument that increasing taxes reduces spending applies to inflation too.
g) I’m not trying to support increased taxation to make life more difficult for everyone. The point is that when money needs to be obtain, where and how it’s obtained matter. You may think that decreasing taxes is always good. But often, tax reduction is more useful politically than economically. Tax breaks are not necessarily the best way to use money.
For example, even in the USA, Noble prize laureate economist Paul Krugman believes tax cuts should be scrapped because “a dollar of infrastructure spending is more effective in creating jobs than a dollar of tax cuts.” [1].
In Singapore, the impact of fiscal spending is much less because exports take up about 200% of our GDP (source: see my comment in Mr Tan Kian Lian’s artcle about minimum wage). China’s exports, comparatively, is only 40% of their GDP, and yet they are already feeling the pinch. In the US, imports are high, but domestic spending is high too.
So keeping our export (both goods and services) businesses competitive probably keeps more jobs than any other measures. If it turns out that our national reserve is used as a fiscal stimulus, then it means that the situation is really desperate because it takes more money for us to have a domestic stimulus of the same scale.
I hope most of it will just be used to maintain confidence but hopefully it’ll never need to be activated. I also hope subsidies to be given to the lowest income group, who can’t even pay taxes.
[1] http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/12/opinion/edkrugman.php
I advocated a minimum wage too as it not only protects vulnerable workers who work for less than $100 a mth but also ensure that we are not sidelined by foreigners who work for at least 1/3 less than us.
A coffee shop owner told me that even after paying the foreign worker levy he still pay less for a foreign worker than a local one. Moreover, the foreigner is young and willing to work longer hours i.e. more than the 8 hrs than locals will work for.
In Australia, the minimum wage is $530 a week even if he works as a cleaner. He can sue the company if the employer pays him anything lesser.
Daily wage workers are usualy pay betwwen $18-$20 an hour subject to taxes. Of course, some employers exploited students and pay them less than $15 an hour.
They also have a chart whereby with a certain eyars of experience and qualification you are supposed to draw that amount of salary. For example, a secretary with x number of working experience will earn more than one who is fresh. Her pay will also be different if she has some formal education/certification. This is to ensure that employees are not being subjected to unfair renumeration. This is what I cann fair employment terms.
A minimum wage policy not only protect the wages of the vulnerable worekrs more but also maintain a certain standard of living for the population. For too long, our standard of living has outstripped our salary growth. Many find it difficult to make ends meet especially when we have only one person working in the family.
For Singapore to be a nice place to live in, the govt must tighten up this process of employment or else we are forever at the mercy of employers and economic growth.
“The Party will emplement a study of the wage structure now prevailing and consider introducing legislation to provide for a minimum wage.”
See direct link at: http://www.wp.org.sg/party/manifesto_1971.htm
21/1/09
Hi Gilbert Goh-Read your posting *36 and it is easier said than done, You quoted the case of Australia where the worker can sue the company if it pays him less than the minimum wage and this is good but in SIngapore, this poor chap has to fork out huge legal fees first before he can sues the company….not so easy. Let us continue with fine tuning existing Labour Laws to an extend companies must have 80% of local SIngaporeans as their work force, and hence cutting down dependent on cheap foreign talents and work force.
Modern Singapore must continue with her Open Economy where the salary of her workers are determined by supply and demand in the work force. Minimum Wage is not the solution.
Regards
Andrew Chuah
“Modern Singapore must continue with her Open Economy where the salary of her workers are determined by supply and demand in the work force. Minimum Wage is not the solution.”
What do you think. Would minimum price for monopolised / oligopolised essential services (e.g transport, water, electricity, etc) be ok in Modern Singapore. You should know very well which group is the most dominating in these special areas.
Are you saying that workers whose price (salary or wage) on their labour should not a set minimum but certain essential costs which they need to incur in their living should have a set minimum.
There is heavy interference by the government in the economy. There’s uncontrolled influx of foreign cheap labour to flood the market to suppress further the wages of Singapore workers. So, the market is not left alone to determine the supply and demand in the workforce. The supply is in excess of the demand thru foreigners allowed in by the govt to meet their greed and exploitation.
21/1/09
To the writer Posting *39-I believe that after the current Labour Laws have been fined tune ie compulsory employment of at least 80% local Singaporeans, hence our local Singaporean wages will eventually go up overtime. Look at developed nations in UK, Europe, USA, Australia and New Zealand, Japan & Taiwan, who have Minimum Wage, we see thousands of illegal immigrants flock to these nations working illegally, and last year UK decided to grant amnesty to these illegal workings and giving them a one way ticket back to their home country.
Let us be realistic, Minimum Wage is not the solution. Workers must have self development via education and new skills enhancement, hence they can then command a high salary or inshort watch their salaries increase overtime…..sad Singapore is not a Welfare State and its present government has not practising Welfare State since day one coming into power unlike the USA which has a new President Obama who promises the Americans who earn less than US$250k a year, a cheque from his Government. As Singaporeans, we must always put Singaporeand her national interests above all things and all things include her Open-Free Economy which is being determined by forces of supply of demand.
Regards
Andrew Chuah
“Workers must have self development via education and new skills enhancement, hence they can then command a high salary or inshort watch their salaries increase overtime…..”
This works only if the structure of the economy does not change every 5-10 years, which is highly dependent on the policies and preferences set out by the government. In other words, training for workers, which supposedly will help them achieve higher wages, has its limitations.
This time, not so simple. We are not facing economic restructuring problems (and frankly we haven’t even solved that one, hehe). This one is about diminishing demand and lost consumer confidence. Fewer jobs at all levels.
All these re-training simply wants us to change our mindset to take lower pay and lower level jobs. Hardly an enhancement.
So what happens when my generation grows old? We have MBAs and what not … after all these years of upgrading and retraining.
Are we supposed to be hawker centre cleaners and chambermaids?
Get real.
what is TOC’s position on the minimum wage and the PAP’s “growth at all costs” policy, as well as the liberal immigration laws which are now imploding on itself as foreigners leave by the bucketloads
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article5557447.ece
we do not need a minimum wages scheme
we will let the employers paid us for what they think we are WORTH
off course cheapskate employers who think they can get away should be DEALT with
by MOM
in return
those with minimum wages says liked $under $600 in returns
should have FREE public transport
either with an ezlink card subsidised by the GOVERNMENT/MOM
afterall the government is supposed to HELP the peasants in dire straits…
now the problemo is……….
would our prince see it this way
would HIS father agreed to it
afterall the public buses did belong to HIM part of it
which wasn’t HIS in the 1st place………..
eer not sure if posted thru
toc mod
if double postin
please removed this one
thank you
Andrew Chuah said: “As Singaporeans, we must always put Singaporeand her national interests above all things and all things include her Open-Free Economy which is being determined by forces of supply of demand.”
The hands of government is every where and it’s most visible in the economic sphere where, among others, the MNCs are given freer reign to exploit our workers without minimum wage.
By allowing foreign workers from Third World countries to flood the market, the government is interfering in and distorting the supply and demand mechanism.
The government, which is itself a major employer, has turned Singapore into a “Open-Free Economy” for big businesses to exploit our voiceless workers.
Andrew Chuah said: “Workers must have self development via education and new skills enhancement, hence they can then command a high salary or inshort watch their salaries increase overtime”
That’s assuming all Singaporeans are academically inclined and intellectually capable enough to go into skills-based jobs. That’s the same as advocating an elitist society.
Bear in mind that there are many Singaporeans who, for some reason or another (whether by nature or circumstantial), are just not able to take on skills-based jobs and have to compete for low wages with foreign workers. Put it in another way – it can happen to your children or mine – would you bear to see your children, if they are less academically inclined, competing for survival with China and India workers who are willing to work for pay bordering on human rights abuse? I don’t know about you, but I cannot bear to see my children facing such circumstances.
Minimum wage laws CAN work, but they should be targeted towards those who need it most and enacted at a level where it is fair for both employers and employees – employers have the incentive to NOT pay decent wages unless they are forced to do so by law.
Andrew Chuan (#40) said: “I believe that after the current Labour Laws have been fined tune ie compulsory employment of at least 80% local Singaporeans, hence our local Singaporean wages will eventually go up overtime.”
Correct me if I am wrong, but there are exemptions for many industries – I believe F&B or service industry could be one – go to any restaurant downtown and look – the wait staff, the kitchen crew, the dishwashers – all from China. Where is the 80% of Singaporeans?
Now, the F&B industry is probably one of the most viable places for low skills low income Singaporeans to work in. If even such places are filled with low-cost foreign workers, where can such Singaporeans go for jobs?
The 80% rule unfortunately, protects intellectuals more than low income earners because of such exemptions
To TOC and Mr Singh.
You make sense and Singaporeans can relate to you and your suggestion.
Most of the policys have dissapointed and the end state such as low birth rates, old age etc are the end result.
Minimum wage is the acid test as it truly does the following
1) Tests the ability of our ministers to think out of the box and not depend on the people
2) Minimum wage has never been tested here, but it has been working for other countries for as long as I know.
3) Change is the only constant, and we have done every other thing except implement the minumum wage scheme…I do not think Singapore will go broke as we can afford to pay millions of dollars for TOP BRAINS that can solve any PROBLEM.
Is minimum wage a problem or a solution ? Depends on which side of the fence you are sitting on
Wong Zi Hwa (HK stand up comedian) said that the best strategy against tyranny is no new birth from the population.
Are we near that stage?