E Contrario

Najib sounded upset when he was asked to respond to the picket by MTUC. The government argues that minimum wage would be resulting a negative impact on economic growth.

This is in fact utter nonsense.

Firstly, implementing a policy to ensure minimum wage for private sector workers does not means a huge rise in wages. The government may need to conduct a survey to determine how many of our workforce are receiving less than the level of standard minimum wage. We need also to find out they are mostly in what sectors.

The government could then study the factors which deter the employers in these sectors from fulfilling minimum wage. Special attention or assistance should be provided to help the industries and employers.

Secondly, we do not deny that for labour intensive industries, providing minimum wage might be an extra burden. We also admit that at the end of the day, the most crucial issue is not wage rise but the increase in productivity.

In labour market economy, there is no evidence that higher wage reduces productivity. On the contrary, wage increase stimulates the growth of consumer market as it generally enhances purchasing power of the workers.

Thirdly, minimum wage directly increase saving in the Employees Providence Fund (EPF). With the extra money in EPF, this would provides additional fund for the government.

As such, workers demanding the application of minimum wage are not anti development or anti growth. The rise of wage is indirectly generating extra income for EPF or other institutions. These funds are available for the disposal of the economic planners, in turn these investments could be used to expand infrastructural construction. And this greatly improves market potentials for faster economic growth.

Pictures of MTUC national picket in Petaling Jaya. Workers assembled on the side of Federal Highway near to Lam Soon Factory.