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Workers march against low minimum wage
Free Malaysia Today - May 1, 2012
About 600 protesters from various workers' groups marched from the Central Market here to the Maybank Tower, the headquarters of Malaysia's largest bank, carrying red banners and placards describing the new policy as a "sham" and indicative of the government's pro-employer stand.
After much anticipation from the workforce and businesses alike, Najib announced live on television last night that workers from the private sector would get RM900 in the Peninsula and RM800 in Sabah and Sarawak.
The announcement was made amid intense speculation that the general election would be held by June. Political observers believe it was targeted at winning the support of the low-income workers, which form close to 80% of Malaysia's 12-million strong workforce.
But workers' groups said the amount set by the government was still very low and could barely support families, especially in the urban areas. Inflation is at an all-time high and workers are struggling to cope with soaring food prices.
"The minimum wage should be set at RM1,500 so that workers will receive a dignified income in line with the government's aspiration to form a high-income society," said one of the points raised in the group's 2012 Workers Day memorandum.
The group also criticised the time frame set for the implementation of the policy. It claimed the vague timeline given by Najib showed the government's insincerity in resolving the longstanding issue.
"It was clearly aimed at winning the votes... it's an election gimmick. It could be a year before the minimum wage is implemented and by then, the election is already held and the government could backtrack on it," Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) secretary-general S Arutchelvan told FMT at the sideline of the protest.
The deadlock over the floor wage issue goes back as far as early 2000. At that time, unionists were in a futile pursuit for a RM900 minimum wage policy as the ruling coalition poured cold water over the proposal it claimed would hurt Malaysia's cheap-labour dependent economy.
But inflation-triggered voter backlash in the 2008 general election forced Putrajaya to reconsider its stand and prompted the setting up of the tripartite Wage Council aimed at reaching a practical solution to the wage impasse.
Employers strike
The council's first initiative was to raise the floor wage for private security staff to RM1,000, but protests from employers forced a delay in its implementation, prompting accusations that the Najib administration was only keen on keeping the bosses, and not the workers, happy.
"So if they have not even given minimum wage for the security guards, what makes you think Najib will implement this [new policy] soon?" Arutchelvan asked, adding that there are various other discrepancies in the new policy, including the fact that the amount set was only RM150 more than the official poverty line.
But National Union of Bank Employees (NUBE) secretary-general J Solomon welcomed Najib's announcement, saying it would help solve urban poverty although he pointed out that high-profit sectors like banking should be able to meet the RM1,500 floor wage demand.
"For the banking sector, employers are more than capable of giving us RM1,500. The staff are even earning a minimum of RM1,000 in this sector," he told FMT. NUBE, whose members make up the most in today's protest, represents some 30,000 of the sector's workforce.
Companies today remain adamant that a floor wage policy would force most labour-intensive small-medium industries to fold, but unionists and opposition leaders argued that the problem could easily be solved through subsidies.
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