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Sakmongkol ak 47

ariff.sabri@gmail.com

Saturday 25 September 2010

The minimum wage level issue.


 

No one has yet studied the consequences of the push for a minimum wage. What would this requirement impact on employers? On the private sector for example? Economically, employers would react this way. If I have to pay a certain minimum level of wages per month, then I will want to make my money worth. I will want to employ those competent workers that justify my paying a certain level of salary or wage.

Now, what would be a direct effect of that? A direct effect would be to discriminate against those who don't have the required level of competencies that warrant my paying. It means, we exclude from the labor market those who don't satisfy our requirements?

Suppose we look into the unemployment profile? Which category of people remain largely unemployed? They are those with less educational levels, posses insufficient skills and have a generally lower competency levels. if we look further, this group of people is likely to be composed of Malays and probably Indians too.

So, if we insist on minimum wage levels, what is the magnitude of those excluded from the labor market. And the majority excluded will be Malays and Indians.

Suppose we go ahead to implement a minimum wage level comprising of say a basic salary plus COLA of a certain amount. This would definitely be a help on existing employees, who will benefit directly.

But it will also discriminate against those who are about to enter the labour market. Even the university graduates. If the minimum wage level is accepted, it will also push the level of wages of those on top of the salary chain.

Again, as an employer I would justify the paying of a certain level of wage by hiring the more competent. I will want a multi linguist- a person who can speak Malay and English well would certainly be value added to me.

So while the minimum wage argument is good for people already in industry, those who are about to enter the labor market will be discriminated against. These will those with less education, lesser skills and lower competencies. Women and working age children will be most affected.

Malays will be most affected too.

21 comments:

Anonymous,  25 September 2010 at 21:26  

looking at from another angle, i think employers can only afford minimum wage if they can pass it to the consumers/buyers ie by increasing the price of the goods. (why shouldn't they be able to do this if this is a free market?)

now are we looking at higher prices of goods? increase in inflation??

OneMalaysian,  25 September 2010 at 21:28  

Dear Sakmongkol

You are not thinking hard enough, and seem to look always from a racial angle. The minimum wage can only be introduced IF we also reduce cheap foreign labour. This means that the labour pool will be reduced,and virtually all Malaysians will have employment BUT at a decent minimum wage that they can live on. Companies will want to reduce head count by increasing productivity (training, mechanisation, use of more technology, etc). On the question of language skills, and qualifications, this issue must be tackled by increasing education, training and encouraging language skills. Do not hold back social progress because some segments are not motivated to better themselves. The 2 things must be done together.

Ariff Sabri 25 September 2010 at 21:50  

anon 21:26
then the market will correct the artificial labour pricing by reducing demand which will lead employers to lay off worker.
one malaysian
i look at first at what group will be most affected. then detail it further. this consequence if not thought out very early on, will create social problems later.

Anonymous,  25 September 2010 at 22:07  

Whatever is the minimum wage now...it has to double by 2020 to maintain parity with cost of living.

Btw,I believe Indonesia has minimum wage regulation but there are ways to circumvent.As long as its an employers market that will always be an issue.

Anonymous,  25 September 2010 at 22:14  

Sak,

It is disappointing that you are approaching this issue from a racial angle.

Just because a minimum wage has been imposed, employers cannot simply raise the competences required as people with these higher skills will not be attracted to these low level jobs.

In arguing that Malays will be disadvantaged, are you suggesting that the standard of Malays' skills is so low that all they can do is menial jobs? That's demeaning to the Malays.

The justification for a minimum wage is more an issue of social justice and equity. Every person who is hired to do a job by an employer is entitled to a fair wage. If employers argue that they cannot afford to pay a fair wage, then they have no business being in business as it otherwise means exploitation of labour.

Since you have chosen to argue on racial terms, let me also suggest to you that the Malays will be the biggest beneficiary, as a minimum wage would catalyse an all round increase in salaries for lower level jobs which are largely held by them.

HAKIMAN,  25 September 2010 at 23:07  

"I will want a multi linguist- a person who can speak Malay and English well would certainly be value added to me."- Dato Sak

That perhaps is true in the 60s and 70s and for bureaucrats.

Today, you have to add one more language especially for Malaysians, ie MANDARIN.

In this region in particular and Asia-wide in general , the overseas Chinese are the business kingpins in both retail and manufacture and with the rise of Chinese as a superpower, the learning of Mandarin becomes almost a necessity to compete in an globalised economy.

It is NOT good enough if you only know English and Malay, especially if you are Malay, unless you want to hibernate for the rest of your life in the civil service.

Look at Singapore, the Malays there are tri-lingual and in the international job market, they will outshine the Malaysian Malays outright.. furthermore they speak better English than many of the Malay graduates or school leavers here.

To be only bilingual in English and Malay would have made sense in the 20th century, but it is to too narrow to survive in the 21st century.

The language to learn is Mandarin, not even Arabic to live in a secular world.

Khun Pana aka johanssm 26 September 2010 at 02:13  

This means the current education is seriously lacking of something.
Might be better to bring back the good old fashion LCE and the MCE .
Malaysian students of all races have all the chance in the world to learn up various languages and dialects.
Learning to speak Bahasa, English, Mandarin , Tamil and others is not a problem. But this is not happening.

It is very true that the Malays and the Indians (from Tamil schools) will be affected.
But why not from the Chinese schools?

Somehow however this will not affect those from Sabah and Sarawak. Unless they want to work in the Semenanjung . (once the min wage is in effect).

*AK47 is looking from another point and deserves to be debated.
And we still don't know if the min wage is gonna cover just the Malaysians or foreign workers as well.
Plus the current govt is too wellknown for flip flops.
Anyway, nothing is "murtamad" / finalized.

Anonymous,  26 September 2010 at 10:04  

When Minimum wage is imposed, there would be less need for foreign labour.

Many of our Malaysian products will rise in price and an initial inflation takes place.

That is the price , we must pay.

Right now, the foreign labour is depressing local wages and therefore trapped to this level of wages while prices still inflate. You get what you get today... real incomes decreases and you shall one day be earning "Indonesian" level wages viewed from the point of Singaporeans and other more developed countries.

Without foreign labour, many of our industries may have to close shop too. That would be bad for the managerial levels.

Well , we have to choose one or the other. WE Malaysians are just incapable of organising world class income generating niche. The local Chinese/Indian business communities are third class now for lack of support all these years. The Malays are still very much a civil servant and GLC community lacking real competitive business community with a few exceptions.

So to have it or not is a very difficult decision especially the real income raising FDI is down while good high income generating locals because of the likes of Ib. Alis looks elsewhere for opportunties.

We are really in deep s--t.
The politicians forgot they need to rule the country instead of harping on petty religious and racial issues that do not generate income.

We have so called irresponsible leaders out to split the country instead of uniting. I think this is the only country doing such a thing. Leaders prefer to destry the country just to be in power.

The trouble is , these politicians are embarking on a disunit route are stupid politicians because the end result is their own demise.


Habis lah.

OneMalaysian,  26 September 2010 at 11:00  

Dear Sakmongkol

In Sunday Star today Dr Fong Chan Onn has written a piece advocating a national minimum wage, something he didn’t quite achieve when he was the minister for human resources. His main point was that there is a disparity in bargaining power between employers and employees, so the weaker party – employees – ought to get legislative help. In other words the labour market is not perfect in setting wages.

I get your point about the possible social problems that might arise if higher wages will leave more Malays and Indians unemployed i.e. their position gets worse. This will not happen IF we reduce substantially the 3.0 million foreign (legal and illegal) workers in this country.

When we have this many foreigners working here it implies that there is full employment and there are not enough Malaysians who want to work. Is this really true? I will give you an example. In the Klang Valley foreigners, from Mamak shops to high-class eateries, man almost all restaurants. Why are there no Malaysians? The answer I got was that Malaysians don’t want to work for that (low) salary. But in Australia and elsewhere in the Western world their citizens work in restaurants.

This has gone on for a long time and will consequently take a few years to rectify. Businesses need to re-engineer to adapt to higher wages and lower head counts to cater for minimum wages and reduced use of cheap foreign labour. The challenge to cope with higher labour input cost will not be easy. As for Malaysian workers, let us help them all to upgrade their skills (language included) so that the higher wages do not reduce productivity. Again, the government is not doing enough in this vital issue.

dianna 26 September 2010 at 15:33  

2

The government needs to simulate the effects carefully first otherwise the positive effects may be distorted by unseen market forces if and when the policy is enacted:

- what assurance does the country have that enterprises won't pull out and relocate?

- what will be their respective costs of automation and reskilling if they take up the challenge?

- will FDI dwindle even more at exactly the time when we need them the most to filip momentum for the ETP?

- if the policy is applied, how will it be applied? To all occupations at once or first those which are heavily unionized followed by sundry workers?

- will the policy put ideas into the heads of foreign worker agencies that they can also clamour for higher contracted wages for their workers sent here? will those industries which cannot automate beyond what they are doing for risk of costs overrun, such as garments-making and even electronics, then have to source workers from other sources failing which they will close, and if they are to be sourced, which will be those sources we have not considered todate?

- will doing so be too hard and fast for local enterprises to reengineer themselves on time to automate and wean off their dependency on such foreign workers?

- what will happen to enterprises in more remote areas where local labour may be more plentiful but their skills will be short - will they fold because their margins will be eroded by set minimum wages they are unprepared to shoulder?

- will the rural local workers then have to move into cities like Greater KL to look for jobs, only to find their dreams shattered because the ETP projects, majority private-run, will only maximize profits by reducing labour costs and optimizing skillsets which these rural workers don't have, much like the Sarawak youths left at the streets when they came over?

- and if their dreams are thus shattered, will they linger in the streets and end up being a social pressure group at the time when all must move forward with swimming clockwork for the next ten years?

- and if the policy is phasally applied by occupational groups, would shop assistants stand idly waiting for their turn as costs increase because of wage increases in other first target groups with similar qualifications, like clerical staff?

- and is the present government becoming more EPF-centric, where the fund will be augmented by statutory contributions from raised wages? One notes that the market capitalization of the present potential private sector players for the ETP are too small to leverage banker funding for the projects whose returns will only be long-term which means the interest rates will be too high unless the government provides backing. Apart from conflict of interest by persuading the EPF Board to lend or co-participate, does the government have enough financial muscle on its own to provide those backings?

dianna 26 September 2010 at 15:33  

3

We must also be mindful of other factors playing in the background.

One, the ETP commits the country's resources beyond 2020. Most of the projects relate to infrastructure and real estate development. These do not add new skills or upscale them to a level needed for a high income economy where people innovate, design, make and sell - to overseas buyers - for if we are presently low income in the main, where do we have local buyers for the new and higher-value products and services we are planning to make?

Two, the present government appears to be stymied by what must be done about the most important thing - education. Since it is stymied, it appears to have washed its hands of the whole matter. The talent corporation has not taken off inasmuch the corporatisation of Mida which probably needs to wait for the MNC attraction programme which appears not to have been discussed.

Three, it won't be just the cost of labour which may be presenting a new damper on investments. It will also be the cost of utilities. For instance, where is Sarawak, touted one of the poorest states, to find the money to buy Bakun so that MOF can avoid putting in the RM9 Billion undersea cable to Peninsular which now has to order two more coal-fired powerplants?

Desubsidization will add a new cost to enterprises beyond the new labour costs, and enterprises will be challenged to seek experts to help them reengineer and automate their production or upgrade their service levels.

The counter argument is that sooner or later all this has to be done anyway so we might as well bite the bullet now, come what may. Well and fine, so long as we don't swallow it accidentally. Get that simulation done first, i say.

dianna 26 September 2010 at 15:34  

4/4

Meanwhile let's be entertained by a statement made that one of our communities has lost its racial voice because it is now split three-front. One would like to ask if the kitty box is already empty from corruption and crony capitalism when it had a united voice so much so the community is decades behind because they have been cocooned by patronising politics, how will political soprano's help? Sing the funeral march?

Yet we observe their sort of sentiment still prevails in our beleaguered society today. Take the article in today's paper that was written by a don. He was probably writing to counter another earlier article by another don who lamented our disappearance from the top rankings of our public universities. In today's article, he posits the argument that our public universities might as well pull out from the ranking because the methodology and data are faulty. By whose measure, one asks, when over five hundred universities worldwide are using them? He gave an answer to that by giving an example - he asked if Scopus cites a genetics paper but does not cite a paper delving into the problems of mosques, does that make the university with the latter less qualified to be ranked equivalently? Sounds fair but how does solving problems of a place of prayer put food on the tables of the millions who are still officially living below the poverty line just outside the ivory tower?

Not wanting to face up to real problems and key determinants of material progress is a big issue. Because if you look at the ETP and other programmes todate, they are all driven top2bottom. That don is at the top. What will his staff in the engineering and science faculties think of him for writing such an illuminating article? Especially those roaring to contribute to higher income activities?

I am sure there will be plenty more to say when details are unveiled on the outsourcing of education in Malaysia. Suffice to say, the private education sector at the moment is unequal standards-wise for global participation in innovation. We can thank our Umno politicians for that.

With this article, i hereby presents humble credentials to the eminent blogger. If he can prevail on Rais to stop replaying reruns of cinema movies, that would be add some well-needed distraction from the travails of being Malaysian, where it matters to the world. In this emerging high income economy, the latest and most popular, please.

flyer168 27 September 2010 at 03:51  

Dato',

Anon 10.04, One Malaysian & Neil all have good points...

Sadly, Bolehland is "Beholden to IMF, World Bank, ADB, etc thro' our BNM" & the Worst to come is WTO...

Just to share this...

“The few who can understand the system will be either so interested in its profits, or so dependent on its favours, that there will be no opposition from that class...

While, on the other hand, that great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that Capital derives from the system, will bear its burden without complaint and, perhaps, without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests” - Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild

WTO, IMF,World Bank, Activism - Q & A - http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/WTO_MAI/Q%26A_WTO_IMF_Activism.html

What are ten key reasons to oppose or even shut down the WTO?

1. The WTO prioritizes trade and commercial considerations over all other values. WTO rules generally require domestic laws, rules, and regulations designed to further worker, consumer, environmental, health, safety, human rights, animal protection, or other non-profit centered interests to be undertaken in the "least trade restrictive" fashion possible-almost never is trade subordinated to these noncommercial concerns

2. The WTO undermines democracy by shrinking the choices available to democratically controlled governments, with violations potentially punished with harsh penalties

3. The WTO actively promotes global trade even at the expense of efforts to promote local economic development and policies that move communities, countries, and regions in the direction of greater self-reliance

4. The WTO forces Third World countries to open their markets to rich multinationals and to abandon efforts to protect infant domestic industries. In agriculture, the opening to foreign imports will catalyze a massive social dislocation of many millions of rural people on a scale that only war approximates

5. The WTO blocks countries from acting in response to potential risk-impeding governments from moving to resolve harms to human health or the environment, much less imposing preventive precautions

6. The WTO establishes international health, environmental, and other standards at a low level through a process called "harmonization." Countries or even states and cities can only exceed these low norms by winning special permission, rarely granted. The WTO thereby promotes a race to the bottom and imposes powerful constraints to keep people there

7. WTO tribunals rule on the "legality" of nations' laws, but carry out their work behind closed doors. The very few therefore impact the life situations of the many, without even a pretense at participation, cooperation, and democracy

8. The WTO limits governments' ability to use their purchasing dollars for human rights, environmental, worker rights, and other non-commercial purposes. The WTO requires that governments make purchases based only on quality and cost considerations. Not only must corporations operate with an open eye regarding profits and a blind eye to everything else, so must governments and thus whole populations

9. WTO rules do not allow countries to treat products differently based on how they were produced-irrespective of whether they were made with brutalized child labor, with workers exposed to toxins or with no regard for species protection

10. WTO rules permit and, in some cases, require patents or similar exclusive protections for life forms. In other words, the WTO does whatever it can to promote the interests of huge multinationals-there are no principles at work, only power and greed ;

Contd...Pt2

flyer168 27 September 2010 at 03:53  

...Pt2

What short-term alternatives are there?

The immediate alternative to the WTO is for international cooperation to restrain out-of-control global corporations, capital, and markets by regulating global corporations and markets to make it possible for people in local communities to control their own economic lives.

The alternative is to promote trade that:

* reduces the threat of financial volatility and meltdown
* enlarges democracy at every level from the local to the global
* defends and enriches human rights for all people
* respects and fosters environmental sustainability worldwide
* facilitates economic advancement of the most oppressed and exploited groups

Rather then the global economy being regulated by small elites in corporate boardrooms, we should have bottom up commissions to restrict trade when it is socially or environmentally detrimental.

Further short-term alternatives to the WTO are to:

* encourage domestic economic growth and development, not domestic austerity in the interest of export-led growth
* encourage the major industrial countries to coordinate their economic policies, currency exchange rates, and short-term capital flows in the public interest
* establish standards for and oversee the regulation of financial institutions by national and international regulatory authorities, encouraging the shift of financial resources from speculation to useful and sustainable development
* establish a tax on foreign currency transactions- known as a "Tobin tax"-to reduce the volume of destabilizing short-term cross-border financial flows and to provide pools of funds for investment in long-term environmentally and socially sustainable development in poor communities and countries.
* create public international investment funds to meet human and environmental needs and ensure adequate global demand by channeling funds into sustainable long-term investment
* develop international institutions to perform functions of monetary regulation that are currently performed inadequately by national central banks, such as a system of internationally coordinated minimum reserve requirements on the consolidated global balance sheets of all financial firms.

The alternative to the WTO is to reorient international financial institutions from the imposition of austerity and destructive forms of development to support for labor rights, environmental protection, and rising living standards.

The alternative is for wealthy countries to write off the debts of the most impoverished countries and to create a permanent insolvency mechanism for adjusting the debts of highly indebted nations.

The alternative is to use regulatory institutions to help establish public control and citizen sovereignty over global corporations and curtail corporate evasion of local, state, and national law, such as establishing a binding Code of Conduct for Transnational Corporations that includes regulation of labor, environmental, investment, and social behavior.

The alternative is to renegotiate WTO, NAFTA, and all other agreements regulating international trade to reorient trade and investment to be means to just and sustainable development." Unquote.

You be the judge.

Cheers.

Anonymous,  27 September 2010 at 09:32  

Neil,

Welcome back!

This time do grow a thicker facial tissue, for pseudo-credential holders r everywhere. They fight dirty, just like that don that u mentioned.

Ha! mosque finding vis-a-vis crop genetic research. He dont even know HOW Scopus rates academic papers, that show how he earned his don status.

Tsk....tsk....

anomie

dianna 27 September 2010 at 09:58  

Thank you, anomie. Hope your business is expanding well.

Here's the first part (1/4) which seems blocked off:


Probably the same motive force - kneejerk reaction - prompts the bringing forward of this proposal of minimum wage level as that which prompted the proposal for a GST which appears to have disappeared into the nether.

It makes one wonder how decisions on proposals are made at the highest echelons in the country's administration which is now about to embark on a mega-billion programme.

Was this proposal for a minimum wage because of the sudden and unnerving discovery that 34 percent of the workforce falls below the poverty line so that minimum wages must now be legislated in order to create higher incomes by one stroke? Another attempt at creative accounting to reach the ETP end-target? Who was backholding the information all along?

Moving forward, there are contending considerations for the proposal.

Firstly, one must commiserate with the plight of our low income groups. The policy corrects an anomaly long ignored for the reason it was politically hazardous to admit all these years of infrastructure-building and socio-economic engineering have only left the majority behind economically. Mentally too, if you want to complete the diagnosis.

Secondly, the ETP targets higher incomes; however it will raise the incomes of those who are presently enabled to participate in its projects more than those who are not enabled or lacking thereof. That's seventy percent of the population.

On the other hand, a minimum wage policy will also at least level the playing field between employer and employee, and arguably motivate enterprises to automate and upgrade, something long overdue but not without good reason, namely our education policies.

Nevertheless, the employment market is challenged by what is insitu - the present situation as it stands.

Investors know all along that our productivity so far has been based on propping up output not based on value but by volume from low-cost, three-shift productions, in most cases using abundant cheap foreign workers in lieu of heavy mechanization. Pages 6-7 of this short presentation says as much indirectly:

mohr.gov.my/pdf/Paper_by_MEF.pdf

Furthermore, our share of net Asean FDI inflow last year was 3.4 percent. That's appalling for an asian tiger with resources, land and infrastructure now turning fast into a stripeless pussycat.

The questions then drain down to this: is the timing for the proposal appropriate?

Anonymous,  27 September 2010 at 10:29  

Thanks, Neil.

The business is growing slowly, & yet the Norwegian HQ is happy.

In fact, the workers just got their salaries adjusted upward.

This seems to be the trend now in China. The move put pressure on the earning. But the workers r happier & hopefully will translate their happiness into higher production, with minimum waste & world-class efficiency.

Minimum wages do help! Minimum wages rule, as it impresses upon the workers the return of their decent working effort.

anomie

dianna 27 September 2010 at 11:48  

i wonder if this will get to you:

http://is.gd/fuZsr

Anonymous,  27 September 2010 at 15:49  

Ha! Neil,

That paper is a 'must read' among the junior management of the company, not that only the seniors r been seriously impressed upon.

It's also one of the contributing factor that the Chinese workers got their rise.

U do read wide & far, Neil! Not many know about that paper outside our circle.

Tabik spring!

anomie

Anonymous,  27 September 2010 at 16:50  

Is this a result of non policy action by previous HR Minister who is now trying to champion the minimum wage topic? What would be today's labour management scenario if he had the foresight to layout the policy then?

Malaysia is now trapped because poor policy making on HR management. Brain drain, lack of quality graduates are all result of this spiral. Yet, we keep hearing of cursory shrug-off of their legacies.

Your comment, Dato?

Anonymous,  29 September 2010 at 12:34  

hmmmm,

izinkan saya menggunakan bahasa kebangsaan kita.

salam dan sejahtera kepada pemilik blog dan semua,

1. isu gaji minimum timbul berikutan terdapat banyak majikan yang mengambil kesempatan dan mengeksploitasi pekerja mereka dengan menawarkan gaji yang rendah sehingga di bawah paras garis kemiskinan. kesannya ramailah rakyat malaysia yang walaupun bekerja tetapi miskin dan tidak mampu menyara hidup mereka dan keluarga mereka dengan baik hatta untuk memastikan dapur mereka sentiasa berasap setiap hari. setuju?

2. apabila wujud golongan ini, Kerajaan terpaksa menyediakan bantuan bagi memastikan mereka dapat hidup dengan sempurna baik dari segi makan minum, tempat tinggal, kesihatan, pakaian dan pelajaran. apabila semakin ramai golongan ini, semakin besarlah peruntukan yang perlu disediakan oleh Kerajaan bagi menyediakan bantuan. sekiranya tidak dibantu, pasti akan menimbulkan masalah lain seperti peningkatan kadar jenayah, kewujudan rakyat yang terpinggir dari agenda pembangunan negara dan banyak lagi penyakit sosial yang lain. dan apabila dibantu, terpaksalah dikurangkan peruntukan bagi tujuan lain (tapi tak nampak pula kerajaan mengurangkan peruntukan, mungkin terlalu nak jaga hati banyak pihak, alamat tambah hutang lagi la nampak gayanya kalau begini. inipun satu masalah lagi)

3. Perkara ini jika tidak dibendung pasti akan merugikan negara baik kerajaan, rakyat mahupun pihak swasta yang berniaga mencari keuntungan di Malaysia. setuju?

4. suka saya petik kata-kata tun dr mahathir "pasaran bebas bukanlah pasaran yang adil". inilah buktinya. pembayaran gaji yang tidak setimpal dengan titik peluh yang dicurahkan oleh pekerja.

5. baik, memandangkan perkara ini akan menjejaskan negara keseluruhannya, pihak Kerajaan adalah betul untuk melaksanakan gaji minimum dan pihak swasta dan rakyat juga hendaklah turut berganding bahu menjayakan polisi ini dan tidak boleh lepas tangan dengan merengek dan merintih kepada kerajaan semata-mata. setuju?

6. sebelum itu, saya setuju dengan satu komen yang menghendaki kerajaan mengkaji terlebih dahulu kesan negatif yang mungkin timbul apabila gaji minimum dilaksanakan. antaranya adalah peningkatan kos menjalankan perniagaan dan inflasi.

7. pada pandangan saya, apabila pihak kerajaan, swasta dan rakyat
berganding bahu, kesan negatif ini boleh dielakkan.

8. pihak swasta perlu menjadi lebih berdaya saing dengan mengurangkan
kos-kos lain yang kurang perlu
seperti elaun-elaun pengarah yang
melampau dan mengguna pakai proses
kerja, yang inovatif dan dapat menjimatkan kos. pihak swasta (majikan) boleh juga meneliti semula beban kerja pekerja dan membuat agihan tugas yang sesuai dengan gaji minimum asalkan tidak sampai kepada tahap yang menindas pekerja. pihak swasta yang tidak berdaya saing dan hanya tahu naikkan harga boleh tutup kedai.

9. bagi memastikan inflasi tidak berlaku, rakyat perlulah menggunakan kuasa pengguna dengan sebaik mungkin. janganlah pandai merengek sahaja apabila harga barangan naik. gunakan akal yang telah dikurniakan sebaik mungkin dan bersatu untuk memastikan harga barangan adalah terkawal. jadikan tawar-menawar dalam jual beli sebagai amalan. berkorbanlah dalam hal ini, sekiranya tidak, sia-sia sahaja gaji minimum dilaksanakan.

10. pihak kerajaan pula hendaklah memastikan unsur-unsur monopoli dalam perniagaan dihapuskan dan mengambil tindakan yang paling keras kepada pihak swasta yang tidak beretika dan menindas pengguna. pastikan hanya peniaga yang beretika dan memberi manfaat kepada rakyat dan negara sahaja beroperasi.

11. marilah kita bersama-sama memainkan peranan menjadikan negara kita yang telah sedia kaya sebagai negara yang aman dan sejahtera bagi diri kita dan generasi akan datang. buangkan sifat tamak, pentingkan diri sendiri dan tanamkan sifat prihatin dan kasih sayang sesama kita. bersatu teguh bercerai roboh.

terima kasih.

kang koong foo

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