Malaysia’s union chief demands $375 minimum wage
KUALA LUMPUR (Thomson Financial) - Malaysia’s top union chief on Thursday called for a minimum wage of 1,200 ringgit ($375) to help workers cope with soaring food and fuel prices.
Syed Shahir Syed Mohamud, president of the Malaysian Trade Union Congress, said millions of workers struggled on a monthly income of less than 700 ringgit.
‘I cannot imagine how they survive with that meagre income and afford a decent life, especially for those living in industrial areas. This is the number one issue that workers are facing now,’ Syed told Agence-France Presse after addressing a May Day rally in Selangor state.
Syed said employers’ excuses that higher wages would increase operating costs and hit the competitiveness of Malaysian goods were outdated.
‘Our workers should be trained and better their skills and taught to operate machinery. This will cut the country’s dependence on cheap foreign labour,’ he said.
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, in his May Day message, urged workers to be more innovative and creative to ensure the country remains competitive.
He said Malaysia could no longer rely on its cheap labour to attract investors and should focus instead on creating a higher quality and better educated workforce in the face of increasing regional competition.
‘In the era of a knowledge-based economy, the ability to generate, spread and apply knowledge is crucial to determine the nation’s productivity and competitiveness,’ he said in the statement.
‘Malaysia can no longer depend on cheap labour costs. Skills and knowledge have become an important prerequisite in increasing one’s wages in today’s economy,’ he said.
The economy is going through a transition phase as it seeks to shift from a low-wage model to a high-wage, knowledge-based economy.
Malaysia is one of Asia’s largest importers of cheap foreign labour and has about 2.3 million workers from Indonesia, Bangladesh, India and elsewhere to clean homes, construct buildings and gather crops.
The government has said it plans to cut its reliance on foreign labour to create more job opportunities for unemployed local people.
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Minimum wage is fundamental to end both real enough suffering and slavery-kind of exploitation of workers, locals or migrants. The PM message to workers to increase their creativity without addressing this fundamental issue is such a travesty of justice! The whole system that exploits the workers economically are also linked to the social crisis such as children especially in large families not getting enough nutrition due to such low wage but increase food prices simultaneous phenomena. Further, the problems of increasing crime rate can also be linked to such low wage due to some resorting to crime to supplement their income or just surviving! Even drug problems and “mat rempit” phenomena can be linked to such economic injustice, since most would come from low-income families who barely have enough to live on or living in cramped low-income flats or feeling despair of not being able to catch up economically with the better off ones especially who are born into well-to-do families. So if this govt really cares about the survival and happiness of our younger generation and want healthy, creative and productive workers, then address and resolve with the utmost urgency first such fundamental injustice of keeping labour slavery-like, just for the benefit of greedy profiteering bosses and corporations!
Comment by Noor Aza Othman — May 3, 2008 @ 2:11 am