The Reform Party Secretary General, Mr. Kenneth Jeyaretnam, is hosting a discussion session on Singapore’s economy. Specifically, Kenneth will discuss our proposal for a minimum wage and other measures advocated by the Reform Party to improve the living standards of the majority of ordinary Singaporeans.
Join us on 5th Dec 2009, Sat @ 1:30pm at RELC Hotel, 30 Orange Grove Road.
Please click on the link below for further location details:
http://www.relcih.com.sg/location.html
Released by the Reform Party’s CEC:
Kenneth Jeyaretnam
Edmund Ng
James Teo
Tony Tan
Justin Ong
Amy Lui
Mohammed Affendy
Quek Teow Chuan
Tan Tee Seng
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Refer to comment 44 by [Just Another Singaporean] :
“Theory is only good if a few basic assumptions are the only parameters that matter and remain true throughout. Real life is more complex than this where theorists sometimes find it expedient to exclude other important parameters as it will make their theory messier and not so neat. It is not so basic when this theory is put side by side with other matters, easily forgotten when a particular theory is being emphasized, when standards of living is not going to improve where basic wages for work done are not enough to cover basic costs of essentials like food & shelter.”
When certain economic theories are taught in schools throughout the world and over the decades, they must have been accepted as good theories and are applicable to real life.
If basic wages can’t cover costs of essentials, why are there people travelled all the way from China or India to take up the jobs here?
“You may want to give appropriate examples of jobs which may be outsourced to other places outside of our country because of minimum wages. Jobs that command low-wage here like labourers, cleaners, waiters, etc have to reside within the country and cannot be practically outsourced. Most probably, those jobs which can be outsourced because of low wages plus other overall synergistic considerations would have already been done so and, if not already being done, will be done.”
Oh I see, the Reform Party is proposing a system of minimum wages to protect labourers, waiters and cleaners! Didn’t you tell them that these are jobs which Singaporeans do not want to do?
Singaporeans want to play with modern technologies while earning their incomes. They want to be professionals, executives, managers and investors. It seemed to me that the Reform Party is using an out-dated weapon to hit wrong target! Or may be they do not know the ground well enough.
Members of the Reform Party must have missed many of the economics lessons delivered by the ministers over the decades : skill upgrading , re-training, positive attitude and growing the economic pie for all! Tell them not to miss the next lesson!
“It just needs one self-interested dissatified worker to blow the whistle with proof and strict enforcement, made much easier in a tight country like ours, to ensure that this does not happen. Undesirable & illegal acts like drug trafficking, robbery, etc may still happen even if there are laws to curb it and that goes the same for minimum wage policy as far as your concern for “black labour market” goes. That does not take away the fact that certain good policies or laws still need to be there.”
And what are you going to do with the company that paid below the minimum wage? Closed it down? Do you know how many people would lose their jobs?
I refer to (54 – My Views). Stop giving excuses that Singaporeans do not want to work as cleaners, labourers and waiters. Singaporeans simply don’t want to be exploit. An Indian foreign worker said to me he is paid $800 as skilled labour doing documentation works like running errands applying permit. Recently he passed his driving test and his employer ask him to drive too without increase in salary. He said his employer pay a Singaporean $2k doing the same job but with extra responsibility he got no wage increase. Does he have a choice despite pouring his unhappiness to me? You throw peanuts, the gorilla will stand aside and let the monkey have it but if you throw a banana, the gorilla will definately go for it. Please, stop the daylight exploitation.
In anyways, the government just want to see better employment statistics, but doesn’t care how such statistics arrived.
End