Minimum wage - Shit Say and Zainal eating their own shit now?

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Professor Lim Chong Yah, who was a key architect of the economic restructuring exercise that overhauled Singapore’s wage system in the late 70s, talked about introducing a compulsory minimum wage scheme in Singapore some 2 years ago (‘Prof Lim Chong Yah: Compulsory min wage scheme may be necessary‘).

He made the call at the Singapore Economic Policy Forum on 25 Oct 2012. At the time, he said that should the wages of the lowest paid workers continue to be low in the next couple of years, serious consideration should be made to introduce a compulsory minimum wage scheme of $1,000 a month as a start-off quantum.

To reduce the income inequality gap, he also reiterated the need to freeze the salaries of the very top income earners.

Earlier in Apr 2012, Prof Lim had proposed a “shock therapy” to the Singapore’s economy so as to help Singapore tackle its wide income gap problem. He said that the growing income inequality “is approaching dangerous levels”.

He had attributed the opening of floodgates to foreign labour, to Singapore’s fear of being uncompetitive. The result was that the non-resident labour force increased by leaps and bounds with only a fraction of them earned wages that were high enough to pay income tax. The cheaper foreign labour flooding Singapore helped pull down the lowest income group in Singapore. Not surprisingly, GDP expanded impressively during this period.

After Prof Lim talked about the possibility of introducing a compulsory minimum wage scheme in Singapore, NTUC then immediately jumped in to register its objections.

Director of NTUC’s Unit for Contract and Casual Workers, Zainal Sapari, who is also an MP in Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC, said at the time, “We are very concerned that minimum wage could actually lead to job loss among workers, especially those vulnerable workers.”

Lim Swee Say: Minimum wage has no place in Singapore

Mr Zainal’s boss, NTUC Chief Lim Swee Say, was also adamant that Singapore not implement any minimum wage schemes.

In 2010, in an interview with the media [Link], Mr Lim said that a minimum wage has no place in Singapore – now or in the near future, because ‘it will not work’.

He said there was no way to get it right: If the wage was set too low, it would serve no purpose as low-wage workers would continue to earn little. If set too high, it would trigger higher unemployment as companies would cut demand for labour or their investments.

He then also dismissed the idea of setting different minimum wages for each sector, depending on the type of work done by low-wage workers, as it would be hard to justify why workers in a certain sector should be paid a higher wage.

Mr Lim also said the better way to help low-wage workers is to raise their skills through what he calls a ‘minimum skills’ approach. Over time, higher skills and productivity would lead to higher wages, instead of compelling employers to cough up the extra money through a minimum wage law, he said.

Mr Lim’s comments came after some NUS academics started debating about the need for a minimum wage scheme in Singapore following the legislation of minimum wage laws in Hong Kong in July 2010.

NTUC Chief eating his words?

Yesterday (29 Oct), the Government announced that it had accepted the recommendations contained in the Security Tripartite Cluster (STC) report [Link] on a progressive wage model (PWM) for the security industry.

From 1 September 2016, security agencies must ensure their security officers receive the required training and are paid wages that are in line or higher than the wage levels specified in the PWM in order to renew their licence to operate. Under the PWM for the security industry, a minimum monthly wage of $1,100 has been set for the security officers working in these licensed agencies (‘Govt to set $1,100 minimum wage for security guards‘).

And this year, a new law requiring all cleaning companies to be licensed took effect on 1 September 2014 (‘Lim Swee Say: Cleaners are no longer cheap labour‘). Under the new law, cleaning companies are required to pay their cleaners at least $1,000 a month under a compulsory “wage ladder”, where cleaners can get higher salaries as they gain better skills.

With the latest change, cleaners now start off with a “basic wage” of $1,000 a month, and earn at least $1,600 if they progress to become supervisors. The local media and the government use the term “basic wage” and have avoided calling it “minimum wage”.

In any case, it looks like the Government is setting a different minimum wage for each sector – $1,000 for the cleaning industry and $1,100 for the security industry.

What happened to Mr Lim’s earlier comment that “it would be hard to justify why workers in a certain sector should be paid a higher wage”? In this case, a security officer would minimally be paid $100 more than a cleaner.

What happened to Mr Zainal’s earlier comment that “we are very concerned that minimum wage could actually lead to job loss among workers”?

Are Mr Lim and Mr Zainal eating their own words now? What do you think?

http://www.tremeritus.com/2014/10/30...own-words-now/


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