The sheriff arrived at the factory here to shut it down, part of a national enforcement drive against clothing manufacturers who violate the minimum wage. But women working on the factory floor — the supposed beneficiaries of the crackdown — clambered atop cutting tables and ironing boards to raise anguished cries against it …
[ ]made just $36 a week, $21 less than the minimum wage, but needed the meager pay to help support a large extended family that includes her five unemployed siblings and their children.
The women’s spontaneous protest is just one sign of how acute South Africa’s long-running unemployment crisis has become. With their own industry in ruinous decline, the victim of low-wage competition from China, and too few unskilled jobs being created in South Africa, the women feared being out of work more than getting stuck in poorly paid jobs.
It’s not the economic and fairness “no-brainer” that Tan Kin Lian, the SDP, and assorted go-gooders make it out to be.
To me the case for minimum wage is about fairness but then life is unfair as the father of UK’ s prime minister said. He was the senior partner in a leading stockbroker (where his grandfather was a senior partners), his grandfather was also CEO of HSBC’s London office; and he married the daughter of a director of Chartered Bank (now StanChart) and another partner in the broker. But he did not have the use of his legs.
Its always going to be a tug of war and it always going to lean towards one side more than a balance or fairness as we describe. But if one side lose and the opposing force its gone, they are going to be drag along and tend to not able to find a standing feet. Such situation is never good long term wise.
What happen in Africa is just a cause and effect. Leave it and it will spiral for the worse. It may seems that such minimum wages is cruel. But without solving the root problem, their situation as a whole won’t improve. We need regulation to fight moral hazard.
Even if this is not done, I foresee the woman might become sick soon from overworking in near future and the result is still going to be the same as what happen now.
Life is not fair but improvement can be make to make the difference closer.
The South African experience would never come to pass in Singapore.
1) The state of unemployment would never become so dire in Singapore (ie an acute long-running unemployment crisis with one of the highest jobless rate in the world lasting for over a decade) simply because Singapore is extremely fortunate to have the PAP as the ruling party in the Singapore government
2) Protests are illegal in Singapore, regardless if it’s peaceful or violent; something the Singapore government would never allow to happen either way
3) Unlike South Africa, Singapore’s economy is not reliant on low-wage, unskilled jobs
4) Should a factory be forced to close down due to the circumstances in the report or for other reasons (eg moving out of Singapore), the Singapore government would ensure that the retrenched workers be entered into the job matching system which have been used countless times over the past decades whenever workers are retrenched en-mass
Practically speaking, had minimum wage been in effect in South Africa before the crisis started instead of using it as an active measure to solve the crisis, the situation would have turned out so much differently than it is today; South Africa’s minimum wage laws came into effect March 1, 2003 and simply compounded the problem instead.
Minimum wage laws in Singapore would not have such an adverse effect simply because the vast majority of workers in Singapore do not work in low-wage, unskilled jobs; unlike South Africa in which the vast majority of workers do work in low-wage, unskilled jobs. Instead such a law would would help the poorest Singaporean meet the minimum living standards of Singapore while not affecting the vast majority of Singaporeans.
I highly recommend if you’re able to, to volunteer your time to any social services in Singapore that deals directly with the poor and see for yourself first hand the situation this group of Singapore citizens are in. It’s totally unbelievable that being such an internationally recognized first world nation, Singapore and it’s citizens does so little to help the poorest of their people.
http://www.scandasia.com/viewNews.php?news_id=7345
http://www.ncss.org.sg/documents/LIST%20OF%20HELPLINES.pdf
“With their own industry in ruinous decline, the victim of low-wage competition from China, and too few unskilled jobs being created in South Africa…”
Not having a go at you, but as I’ve said previously, there’s your problem!
Minimum wage is just a distraction. You are right in that it probably won’t achieve anything in the Singapore context other than make people feel good, partly because $5/hr is too low to have any substantial impact.
Do-gooders do have their place in society though. Life is not fair. But we should all try to make it fairer, because a more cohesive society is built when inequalities are reduced. And increased social cohesion leads to a stronger nation.
It’s all about striking a balance.