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Debate on minimum wage is useless

dodgeball

Alfrescian
Loyal
Actually not true. I personally feel unions in Singapore still have power and are pushing for a lot for low income workers. NTUC's Lim Swee Say is the one that is pushing for minimum wage, but put a better model in place using progressive wage. I strongly support progressive wage to help the poor.
SIA pilots unions have been successful in getting their voices heard. Even when there was SMRT workers' strike, NTUC and the National Transport Workers' Union mitigated the situation.

Unions are out to help disadvantaged and low income workers. Unions still have power today when companies are out to exploit. I feel people do not understand that unions today still give empowerment to people when they are mistreated. Yes, even in Singapore.

People are so hard up about terminologies. Minimum/progressive wage whatever. As long as their base pay increases and continues to increase without much resistance, i will rest my case.
 

Asterix

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Asset

Let's hear what Robert Kuok's South China Morning Post
Has to say about minimum wage in the Fragrant Harbour
Doomsday scenario used as scarce tactic never materialised
Sinkieland's Shit Times will never have this type of editorial


Minimum wage hasn't worked if low-paid can't make ends meet
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 23 December, 2012, 12:00am
UPDATED : Sunday, 23 December, 2012, 1:04am

SCMP Editorial

How much Hong Kong workers should be paid is a highly controversial question. The city took more than a decade to reach a consensus on the need for a minimum wage to prevent abuses. After painful negotiations, bosses and unionists agreed to pitch the level at HK$28 per hour in 2010. Two years later, the minimum wage is due for adjustment for the first time.

With the cost of living rising fast and economic uncertainty growing, the review has, not surprisingly, aroused strong emotions on both sides. After weighing the pros and cons, the chief executive and his cabinet decided to adhere to HK$30 as recommended by the Minimum Wage Commission. Subject to approval by the Legislative Council, some 223,100 workers in the bottom ranks are due for a pay rise from May 1.

The HK$2, or 7.1 per cent, rise is a compromise at a time of high inflation and high business costs. While the hourly rate is still way below the HK$35 sought by the labour side, it is already a step forward from the employers' original demand for a wage freeze. As this is the first time the wage is being adjusted, a modest increase is understandable.

Employers argued that the overall wage bill will grow by HK$2 billion a year as a result of an extra two dollars. A big increase, they say, will only force businesses to fold or to pass the costs on to customers. We do not know how accurate the prediction is. But the doom-and-gloom scenarios that business leaders foresaw before the minimum-wage law was passed two years ago never came to pass.

Workers can be excused for thinking bosses have won the battle. The revised wage is still on the low side. It does not fully make up for the 9 per cent inflation of the past two years. As rightly pointed out by unionists, when an hour's wage is not even enough to get a lunch box from a fast food chain, it speaks volumes about how much protection the law provides.

The wage level is not a cap. Businesses that can afford to pay more should not hesitate to do so. That is the right way to reward performance and maintain talent in a competitive business environment. Most in the workforce are earning more than the minimum wage. But for those at the bottom, wages remain disgracefully low. They are the ones who warrant special attention. That is why the minimum-wage law was enacted. If low-income workers are still struggling to make ends meet, the wage law is not serving its purpose.

http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight...-hasnt-worked-if-low-paid-cant-make-ends-meet
 
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MaxRiley

Alfrescian
Loyal
Minimum wage can't work. That's why you need progressive wage. You need a multi-faceted approach to help them out of their poverty.
Read this article. I believe that we need to give cleaners and low income workers a chance too by helping them to upgrade.

"He said low-wage workers should not be in a situation where they continuously do the same job without upgrading.

Mr Shanmugam cited cleaners as an example, where as a result of skills upgrading, the types of jobs they do now are different from what they did before."

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/multifaceted-approach/1041436.html?cid=FBSG
 

Asterix

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset

Dis Shanmugam clown is now a labour market expert?
Bwahahaha he is already not performing in his own area
That farking Contempt of Court Bill is way overdue
Low productivity MiniSTAR doesn't justify his own wage
Let's hear it from a real labour market expert
Not just any but one who has won the Nobel Prize
Sinkieland's Shit Times won't enlighten you in this way
Instead it gives you tonnes of GAHBRAment bullshit


Minimum wage can benefit Hong Kong, says Nobel laureate

PUBLISHED : Monday, 09 December, 2013, 4:50am
UPDATED : Monday, 09 December, 2013, 5:39am

Benjamin Robertson [email protected]

A well-structured minimum wage can have a positive impact on Hong Kong and should be encouraged, says Nobel laureate Christopher Pissarides.

In an interview with the South China Morning Post, Pissarides also warns against rising debt levels in China, drawing parallels with the troubled euro zone and his native Cyprus.

"I am supportive of a minimum wage because of the encouragement that it gives to young people in particular, and older and not well-qualified people who feel they might be exploited," he says.

A specialist in labour market theories, Pissarides says the challenge is to find a level that protects workers without discouraging hiring. He recommends a starting level equivalent to 40 to 45 per cent of the average wage.

In the United States, the level is too low "and does not provide the security it needs to provide", while in France, at about 55 per cent of median income, it is "discouraging employers … and creating unemployment".

The Hong Kong minimum wage remains a contentious issue between employers and unions since it was introduced in 2011. Originally set at HK$28 an hour, it was raised to HK$30 in May. Unions wanted HK$35.

According to the Census and Statistics Department, the average monthly salary in June was HK$13,982. Assuming a 48-hour work week plus meal times, a worker earning the minimum wage would take home HK$6,240 a month - within the framework suggested by Pissarides.

The hourly rate should then be "pushed up until you reach the point where you are putting at risk job creation and then leave it there", he says.

Pissarides is in Hong Kong in his capacity as visiting professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He won the Nobel prize in economic sciences in 2010.


An adviser to the Cypriot president on how to restore confidence in the country's economic and banking systems, Pissarides forecasts negligible growth across the European Union next year and views with concern China's local government indebtedness.

Making comparisons between the euro-zone crisis, including the use of creative accounting that masked national debt levels in southern European nations before 2008, and Chinese local governments' borrowing habits, he worries that Beijing will need to confront a similar crisis in the future. "There are mounting debts and non-performing loans at local banks," he says, and "as in the euro zone, these could lead to expulsion from the markets and put at risk local deposit."

The unpalatable solution in both places, he suggests, is debt forgiveness and for large fiscal transfers to those regions in need.

China will also need to confront the challenges of an ageing society and dwindling workforce, he says. "Human resources will always be the driving force of economic growth. It will just change. It will become a more highly educated labour force. It will not rely on low wages any more … Growth will come from new technologies and new innovations, new discoveries, new ways of doing things," he says.

The relaxation of the one-child policy is a positive first step, Pissarides says, in reference to recently announced changes to allow parents who are themselves the only child to have two children. But liberalisation should go further, he says.

http://www.scmp.com/business/econom...age-can-benefit-hong-kong-says-nobel-laureate
 

McDonaldsKid

Alfrescian
Loyal
I'm actually leaning towards this progressive wage thing. In theory it sounds great but let's see how if it works.
 

Asterix

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset

Dis Shanmugam clown is now a labour market expert?
Bwahahaha he is already not performing in his own area
That farking Contempt of Court Bill is way overdue
Low productivity MiniSTAR doesn't justify his own wage
Let's hear it from a real labour market expert
Not just any but one who has won the Nobel Prize
Sinkieland's Shit Times won't enlighten you in this way
Instead it gives you tonnes of GAHBRAment bullshit


Minimum wage can benefit Hong Kong, says Nobel laureate

PUBLISHED : Monday, 09 December, 2013, 4:50am
UPDATED : Monday, 09 December, 2013, 5:39am

Benjamin Robertson [email protected]

A well-structured minimum wage can have a positive impact on Hong Kong and should be encouraged, says Nobel laureate Christopher Pissarides.

In an interview with the South China Morning Post, Pissarides also warns against rising debt levels in China, drawing parallels with the troubled euro zone and his native Cyprus.

"I am supportive of a minimum wage because of the encouragement that it gives to young people in particular, and older and not well-qualified people who feel they might be exploited," he says.

A specialist in labour market theories, Pissarides says the challenge is to find a level that protects workers without discouraging hiring. He recommends a starting level equivalent to 40 to 45 per cent of the average wage.

In the United States, the level is too low "and does not provide the security it needs to provide", while in France, at about 55 per cent of median income, it is "discouraging employers … and creating unemployment".

The Hong Kong minimum wage remains a contentious issue between employers and unions since it was introduced in 2011. Originally set at HK$28 an hour, it was raised to HK$30 in May. Unions wanted HK$35.

According to the Census and Statistics Department, the average monthly salary in June was HK$13,982. Assuming a 48-hour work week plus meal times, a worker earning the minimum wage would take home HK$6,240 a month - within the framework suggested by Pissarides.

The hourly rate should then be "pushed up until you reach the point where you are putting at risk job creation and then leave it there", he says.

Pissarides is in Hong Kong in his capacity as visiting professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He won the Nobel prize in economic sciences in 2010.


..............................

http://www.scmp.com/business/econom...age-can-benefit-hong-kong-says-nobel-laureate


Wow, suddenly all the PAP IBs and MiniSTARS are labour market experts
Notwithstanding their own low productivity and overblown wages
Ooi, Ah Neh Shanmugam, where is the way overdue Contempt of Court Bill
Maybe a coalition without Lightning can do a much better job


Minimum wage on way for Germany with Merkel set to agree compromise
PUBLISHED : Friday, 22 November, 2013, 3:39am
UPDATED : Friday, 22 November, 2013, 4:50pm
Agence France-Presse in Berlin

Chancellor Merkel will compromise on pay issue to pave way for coalition, but will insist on her own 'red line' demand of no tax rises
Germany is set to introduce a national minimum wage, Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday, giving in to a core demand of the centre-left party with which she hopes to form a coalition government this year.

The concession was cheered by France, which has - along with the United States and the IMF - urged Europe's biggest economy to boost domestic demand and restore the lopsided trade balance of the export powerhouse.

"This is a signal ... of an approach that may be more co-operative within European economic policies," said French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici, reiterating the need for a euro zone "rebalancing".

Merkel - who has argued that a minimum wage will hurt businesses and force them to lay off workers - said she would have to give in on the issue as a compromise in the ongoing coalition talks with the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

"The Social Democrats will not conclude negotiations without a universal legal minimum wage," she said in Berlin.
Merkel said she and her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) would "try everything to prevent the loss of jobs through this measure" and insisted that in return, her party would insist on its own "red line" demand of no tax rises.

She argued that fiscal discipline and balanced budgets help maintain investor confidence and global competitiveness and added that "Europe's problem is that we've promised almost everything so far and have kept very little of it". Merkel won September elections, but fell just short of a governing majority, forcing her CDU and its Bavarian partners the CSU to enter into tough coalition talks with the SPD, which both sides aim to conclude next week.

In the talks, SPD chief Sigmar Gabriel, Merkel's likely future vice-chancellor, has insisted on the introduction of a nationwide minimum wage of €8.50 (HK$89) per hour to help Germany's growing army of working poor.

Germany has a jobless rate of just 6.9 per cent. But, according to the DIW economic institute, 5.6 million Germans, or 17 per cent of the workforce, now earn less than €8.50 an hour, especially low-skilled and part-time workers.

The SPD has promised to put any coalition deal up for a vote to its sceptical party base, many of whom do not want their blue-collar party to govern in Merkel's shadow, but whose consent would be needed.

Merkel's party favours separate pay deals by industrial sector and region, arguing a national minimum wage would harm many small and medium-sized businesses and could force them to lay off workers.

"The fixed minimum wage ruined East Germany," said the state premier of eastern Saxony-Anhalt, Reiner Haseloff, referring to the former communist government. "We must not make the same mistake."

Currently, a patchwork of pay deals has set minimum wages for a dozen industrial and service sectors, including cleaners, electricians and security guards.

Merkel urged compromises on both sides to forge a coalition government before Christmas.

"I, too, will have to consent to measures I do not innately agree with," she said, pointing to the minimum wage as an example.
She said a grand coalition was "not the heart's desire of politicians", but had resulted from the election outcome.

She said: "The voters have neither given an absolute majority to the business wing of the CDU, nor the left wing of the SPD. Only both of us together will have the ability to govern."

http://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1362430/minimum-wage-way-germany-merkel-set-agree-compromise
 

dodgeball

Alfrescian
Loyal
I'm actually leaning towards this progressive wage thing. In theory it sounds great but let's see how if it works.

Yeah I am waiting to see if it really does change lives of low wage workers. If the model works out, there is hope in helping to improve their lives.
 

GoldenPeriod

Alfrescian
Loyal
When old uncles and aunties sell me tissue paper, i give them money without taking tissue. I also handed a red packet to a security guard on first day of lunar new year just to show my appreciation. You don't need to volunteer just to show that you actually care about their welfare. I am all for volunteering but it is not the only way to help low income workers.

I am not doubting the importance of volunteerism. I am asking what else can be done (apart from debating about minimum wage) to help low wage workers.

Singapore faces a double whammy. Influx of foreigners and no minimum wage. It is a slumlord and slaveowner's paradise.
 

laksaboy

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Asset
Singapore faces a double whammy. Influx of foreigners and no minimum wage. It is a slumlord and slaveowner's paradise.

We are all prostitutes to them, and they are the pimps. Whatever we earn they take a big part away. We have no choice on who we want to serve.

Singapore is a pimpers paradise.


[video=youtube;0Pgm0ARFkB4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Pgm0ARFkB4[/video]
 

dodgeball

Alfrescian
Loyal
We are all prostitutes to them, and they are the pimps. Whatever we earn they take a big part away. We have no choice on who we want to serve.

Singapore is a pimpers paradise.]


Your comments are rude and do not add value to our discussion. On Yahoo's FB, someone left an interesting comment. Copied here FYR -

Daniel Chew I support some form of decent minimum wage, but that also means I am ready to pay more for all the cheap conveniences we are used to. Get over it, nothing comes free in this world. For example my Dad runs a small business in the cleaning industry. He supports raising wages for his employees (mostly elderly), but he also has to face the reality of profit margin. He says that he supports the raise in wages for cleaners because he understands it is tough for them. If he raises his service cost on his own, competitors will take advantage and undercut his contract. But if the wage rise is mandated throughout the industry, then contract security is assured and he will happily pay his employees more.
Like · Reply · 4 · 13 hours ago
 
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ZorrorroZ

Alfrescian
Loyal
seriously keep insisting on the minimum when there can be more you all dont want? LOL

Straw man argument.

Minimum wage does NOT insist that you be paid the minimum wage only, which is what you are inferring with your statement above.

Everyone is expected to be paid fair market wages - not the the minimum wage only.
Minimum wage is to protect those workers from unscrupulous employers who seek to pay a pittance. By legislating the wage, it is to ensure that even if the employer wishes to treat his employees as slaves, he has to pay them at least the minimum wage.
 

Isogallardo

Alfrescian
Loyal
Straw man argument.

Minimum wage does NOT insist that you be paid the minimum wage only, which is what you are inferring with your statement above.

Everyone is expected to be paid fair market wages - not the the minimum wage only.
Minimum wage is to protect those workers from unscrupulous employers who seek to pay a pittance. By legislating the wage, it is to ensure that even if the employer wishes to treat his employees as slaves, he has to pay them at least the minimum wage.


Funny but our government is actually legislating the progressive wage that has a min sum that the employers are expected to pay and also increase their pay with NWC's recommendations, increase with skills upgrading and career advancements.

Minimum wage doesn't do that and many people are stucked at that minimum without a way to get out of it. Also these companies are not obliged to send them for training or increase their pay. So even with the minimum, it doesnt protect the workers. Also raising the minimum wage will take years like what we are seeing in the USA and this will lead to other problems like unemployment and inflation.

People stuck at minimum wage
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/439224/300-000-stuck-on-minimum-wage

Employers will cut workers if minimum wage is raised
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...s-will-cut-workers-if-minimum-wage-is-raised/
 
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Asterix

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Asset
Why We Need a Minimum Wage

There is constant grumbling from free market aficionados that a minimum wage destroys jobs, particularly for the young. Obama’s proposal to raise the minimum wage is running into opposition in Congress despite evidence that it would have little effect on job supply. In the UK, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has recently ruled out any real increase in the minimum wage. And in Germany, debate continues over whether to introduce a minimum wage at all.

Arguments in favour of a minimum wage mostly hang on the idea that firms have a responsibility to ensure that their workers earn enough to live on. If a firm can’t pay its workers enough to live on, then it isn’t a viable business, because it is dependent on wage subsidies. Of course “enough to live on” depends where you live: the cost of living in London is considerably higher than it is in, say, Newcastle, so a minimum wage that would give a reasonable standard of living in Newcastle is starvation level in London. The campaign for a voluntary Living Wage tries to persuade firms to pay above the current UK minimum wage, which is perceived as being below the real cost of living.

But whether a minimum wage reduces jobs or improves welfare is entirely beside the point. *I find it astonishing that many of the same people who oppose minimum wage legislation are in favour of in-work benefits and measures to force the unemployed to work. They haven’t thought it through.

The real reason why we need a minimum wage has nothing to do with the welfare of workers or the availability of jobs. Welfare is adequately ensured by in-work benefits, and the State is perfectly happy to create the illusion of employment in order to please voters. No, the minimum wage is necessary to protect taxpayers from the rational desire of firms to get something for nothing.

The simple fiscal argument for minimum wage legislation goes like this. Both the UK and the US have systems of in-work benefits that top up wages to a level sufficient to live on. So from firms’ perspective, when there is slack in the labour market (unemployment) they have little incentive to pay wages high enough to live on. And from workers’ perspective, they have little incentive to demand higher wages, especially if the consequence might be unemployment. If there is no minimum wage, therefore, then the co-existence of unemployment with in-work benefits drives down wages to below subsistence level.* As the majority of government tax income comes from households, not firms, over time this becomes unsustainable: all unskilled workers become in effect employees of the state, and the higher skilled are forced to subsidise the wages of the unskilled through rising taxes. There would inevitably be calls for in-work benefits to be cut, probably supported by demonization of the poor. Unskilled workers would be subject to the same accusations of “fecklessness” and “scrounging” as the unemployed already receive.* So in-work benefits without a legislated minimum wage are fiscally unsustainable and socially divisive when there is persistent unemployment.

To be continued........
 

Asterix

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Asset
Continued from post 37

This simple analysis does of course assume that unemployment is a real threat to a worker’s standard of living. *But arguments that the unemployed “choose leisure” imply that unemployment is a choice. If it is, then it cannot really be seen as a realistic threat. If the unemployed can refuse work without cost or sanction, then unemployment benefits themselves act as a minimum wage and there is no need for additional legislation.

Unemployment benefits may actually act as a MAXIMUM wage when there is persistent unemployment, since a worker demanding higher wages can always be replaced at close to unemployment-benefit levels. We know that a legislated minimum wage acts as a wage ceiling as well as a wage floor: it seems reasonable to suppose that an implied minimum wage due to unemployment benefits would do so too. The effect of unemployment benefits is therefore to drive down unskilled remuneration to nearly the same level as unemployment benefits. Where in-work benefits exist and there is no legislated minimum wage, nominal wages may actually be far lower than unemployment benefits, since employers are likely to set wages in the expectation that most workers will qualify for benefits – indeed they may deliberately choose to employ workers who qualify for benefits, because they can pay them less. Those who think employers wouldn’t do this should look at the “roundsman” system that operated in England in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: farmers deliberately used roundsmen (unemployed labourers auctioned off at below market rates) in preference to free labourers because they could pay them less in the certain knowledge that parishes would top up the wages.

The effect of such an implied ceiling on remuneration is that workers become indifferent between working and unemployment: indeed when unemployment is high, jobs are scarce and finding them costly, those without jobs may choose to remain unemployed until the jobs market improves. So at the margin, unemployment can indeed be a choice.

But the low-paid don’t like the unemployed getting nearly as much remuneration as they do. It seems unfair and it creates political unrest. Governments of all colours therefore respond to indifference between work and unemployment by cutting out-of-work benefits to “make work pay”. This creates a “race to the bottom”, which in the absence of in-work benefits results in increasing poverty for both unemployed and employed. This was the situation in Victorian England, where conditions in the workhouses became appalling because conditions for unskilled workers were also appalling. There was, if you like, a competitive market in poverty.* But it would have been even worse without the workhouses. Grim though they were, workhouses did set an implied minimum wage in much the same way as unemployment benefits do. Without them, nominal wages would have fallen even further. After all, when there is high unemployment, firms don’t care if workers and their families starve. There are plenty more where they came from.

In-work benefits set a floor on the level to which effective incomes can fall, which prevents a “poverty market” from developing. *But in the absence of a legislated minimum wage, in-work benefits encourage employers to reduce nominal wages to well below subsistence level.* And this increases the proportion of workers’ remuneration that is borne by the State. If the State increases in-work benefits to try to preserve some sort of differential, employers will simply cut nominal wages even more.* Wage subsidies drive down wages. It is entirely reasonable for the State to set a floor on the contribution it will make to workers’ remuneration.* When there are in-work benefits, a legislated minimum wage is a subsidy floor.

An alternative to “making work pay” by cutting out-of-work benefits is forcing the unemployed to work by imposing sanctions such as loss of benefits for refusing jobs, or limiting the length of time for which benefits will be paid. But benefit sanctions and time limits amount to cutting unemployment benefits, and have exactly the same effect: they drive down wages. Sadly, this approach is increasingly being adopted by Western governments, usually coupled with some kind of “workfare”. Workfare is even worse than simple sanctions, since it displaces other workers. It does not reduce unemployment, but it does reduce wages. When there are in-work benefits but no legislated minimum wage, sanctions and workfare both result in the State bearing more of the cost of unskilled employment.

But governments remain hell-bent on forcing the unemployed into work, any work, however poorly paid and however unsuitable, even if this crowds out other workers. The cost of trying to compel people to work is considerable. When there is persistent unemployment, destroying people’s ability to choose whether or not to work forces down wages. So as long as the unemployed do not have a real choice not to work, wages will continue to fall and the benefits bill will continue to rise.

Personally I would rather people had a real choice between work and leisure.* I would like to see the end of sanctions for refusing jobs, the elimination of workfare schemes, and the provision of a basic income replacing both in-work and out-of-work benefits. But while such a liberal solution remains politically unacceptable, a minimum wage set at subsistence level will be essential for fiscal sustainability.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/francescoppola/2014/01/13/why-we-need-a-minimum-wage/
 
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rushifa666

Alfrescian
Loyal
Well my silly friend right now singapore does not have either progressive or minimum wage. So the whole thread is a waste of time. Situation is very simple.how do you describe a worker whose wage has stagnated for ten years. The word is fucked big time
 

MaxRiley

Alfrescian
Loyal
Well my silly friend right now singapore does not have either progressive or minimum wage. So the whole thread is a waste of time. Situation is very simple.how do you describe a worker whose wage has stagnated for ten years. The word is fucked big time

actually ah boy, Singapore is already implementing progressive wage, some companies already started in cleaning sector. Starting September it will be implemented to all in cleaning sector, followed by security sector.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/basic-wage-levels-to-be/946604.html
 
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