Wednesday, October 21, 2020

Folksy Thoughts on the Workers Lot

 

The debate on having a minimum wage is back and this time it’s back with force. The reason for this is simple – Dr. Jamus Lim, who is the Member of Parliament for Sengkang Group Representation Council (GRC) for the Workers’ Party and a star economist. Dr. Lim managed to make what has traditionally a placid affair (the usual case being a state of every time someone suggests what little the poor get should be protected by law, the ruling party inevitably comes up with a statistic suggesting that its bad for the poor) into a news storm because he had the audacity to suggests that we needed to find hard statistics to prove that minimum wage legislation was bad rather than to reply on “folksy wisdom.” Singapore’s normally placid unions have been up in arms over the adjective of “folksy.” More can be found at:

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/do-not-belittle-us-union-leaders-say-s1300-too-low-minimum-wage-reject-folksy-wisdom

This event underlines some of the more serious fault lines in Singapore’s “meritocratic” society. The first one is the fact that we are a society that seems to link wealth with achievement. The official line is that if you are good, you will rise and earn a lot of money. Hence, whenever there’s a debate on ministerial salaries, the bottom line that the government stresses that you need to pay top dollar for top talent and Singapore has done well in the world because we paid good money to have honest and very competent ministers running the show.

However, it’s a different story at the other end of the scale. Whenever anyone floats the idea of any form of legislation that faces the realities of the free market system, the idea is instantly shot down. Things like a minimum wage or unemployment insurance are considered bad for the economy because they’ll somehow raise labour costs and scare away the investors who have made Singapore so wealthy.

Using the military analogy, the message is clear. Generals have to have more money because we need them to plan. The foot soldiers (i.e. the people who actually put their life on the line in a battle) should not be mollycoddled.    

The second point of Dr. Jamus Lim’s speech is the focus on the role of unions. In the 20-odd years that I’ve lived in Singapore, this is the first time that I remember seeing our unions say anything. The unions normally prefer to stay mum and let their umbrella organization; the National Trade Unions Congress (NTUC) be the public face on all issues relating to workers.   

NTUC is an exceedingly successful organization. It runs a chain of supermarkets and an insurance cooperative amongst many other enterprises. It provides discounts to a number of commercial enterprises (most of which it has a stake in). What is less clear is whether the Union of All Unions has been good at helping the working man. The Secretary General of NTUC is inevitably a cabinet minister, whose main role seems to talk about the success of our “tripartite” model of industrial relations between employers, workers and the government. However, the question remains, what exactly have the unions done for all industrial relations?

The government’s line is that it has done a successful job in as much as Singapore seems to have confined strikes to the history books. I think of the press business where the last strike in journalism was back in 1971 (before I was born). The leader of that strike once admitted that the end of the strike was perhaps good for journalists working conditions but not good for the independent media in as much as the government helped make conditions so comfortable that challenging the status quo was frowned upon.

NTUC will also point out that they offer discounts and in some cases payment for people who want to retrain and thus make themselves more employable. I have yet to take on the paper work required to get paid to learn.

However, does that mean that NTUC has been successful in ensuring harmonious working relationships? As in the case of foreign workers, the answer is likely to be no. Employers begrudge the extra dollars paid to workers as costs and the truth of the matter is that workers continue to struggle. The basic line on wages in Singapore is that the average salary in Singapore is around $4,500 a month and two thirds of us earn below that. Furthermore, costs continue to rise in Singapore. If you want to give the government a headache, just repeat the findings of the Economist Intelligence Unit, which has found that Singapore is the world’s most expensive city for expats. If we’re expensive for an expat with all sorts of perks like housing allowances, then what must it be for locals?

The standard line that the government has used as that Singapore has a “progressive” wage model which is better than the Worker’s Party proposal of a minimum wage. They have pointed out to the fact that the poor saps earning $1,300 a month do get “workfare” supplementary support.

As someone who has received workfare, I will say that its nice to see a few extra bucks in your account every quarter. Workfare is a good incentive to help you stay in a job. However, it is by no means a serious supplement to ones living expenses. I take myself, a 46-year old worker as an example. How much I’d get in income support, assuming I earned the proposed minimum of $1,300 a month:

https://www.workfare.gov.sg/Pages/CalculatorEmployee.aspx

 

Let’s be realistic, the most I’ll be able to do with the money is to buy the family a meal when I receive it. It’s not going to do anything beyond that.

Something needs to be done to ensure that workers at the lower end of the scale have a means of getting a living wage. Rather than dismissing Dr. Lim’s remarks about “folksy wisdom,” the unions should gather their “folksy wisdom” and lead a discussion on making our model for industrial relations better. Unions are after all supposed to protect the rights of the workers as well as selling them products.

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Maira Gall