Will minimum wage laws work here?

[ponpokku]

Even after importing third world help by the millions, costs of living still keep shooting up. It is time to sit down and seriously challenge the supposition that allowing foreign workers into Singapore reduces costs.

The last time I check, none of the companies passed on the costs savings to consumers from switching to cheaper foreign labour, All just quietly earn bigger profits. Now when foreign labour is not as viable as before, they have additional costs, now must pass it on?

exactly. we are already having rocketing prices with FTs, the arguments against min wage dun stand.

 

[kapuliko]

so fast show his true colors alr.

minimum wage is not to give the lower paid employees more money or higher salaries, but to ensure that they are a paid a fair wage

this is recognized by everyone who is talking for or against minimum wage.

the PAP has talked and discussed minimum wages before in parliament and even the newspapers has discussed about it before.

but there has NEVER been any discussion about, if the "cost" of increasing wages should be transferred to the consumer, or anyone besides the employer - simply because it should never be a question about WHO TO TRANSFER THE COST TO

what minimum wage does is to make it illegal to pay your employees a wage that does not allow them to live properly

this is why minimum wage is called minimum wage. it is the lowest amount that an employee can pay their workers.

dun come talk about "increasing costs" simply because if you are paying your employees minimum or above minimum wage, your costs would not have increased at all!

if you are paying your employees below minimum wage, then YOU need to pay your employees more.

even the PAP is able to recognise this and they themselves have stated that singapore does not have minimum wage because it would be set so low that it would be make setting a minimum redundant!

source https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/wages/minimum-wages/definition/WCMS_439072/lang--en/index.htm

https://www.todayonline.com/big-read/perennial-debate-singapore-minimum-wage

https://www.pap.org.sg/news/ge2020-news/why-no-minimum-wage/

Please run for election and bring your great ideas to the world. EDMW is too small for you.

 

[coyote]

You are just being unreasonable and irresponsible. Money does not fall from the sky. If somebody wants more money, somebody always have to pay. If you do not know where to get more money to pay, then your proposal simply won't work. Others suggested you run for election which could be a good lesson to you. Then you'll learn that talking like you talk is easy, doing it is entirely a different thing.

so fast show his true colors alr.

minimum wage is not to give the lower paid employees more money or higher salaries, but to ensure that they are a paid a fair wage

this is recognized by everyone who is talking for or against minimum wage.

the PAP has talked and discussed minimum wages before in parliament and even the newspapers has discussed about it before.

but there has NEVER been any discussion about, if the "cost" of increasing wages should be transferred to the consumer, or anyone besides the employer - simply because it should never be a question about WHO TO TRANSFER THE COST TO

what minimum wage does is to make it illegal to pay your employees a wage that does not allow them to live properly

this is why minimum wage is called minimum wage. it is the lowest amount that an employee can pay their workers.

dun come talk about "increasing costs" simply because if you are paying your employees minimum or above minimum wage, your costs would not have increased at all!

if you are paying your employees below minimum wage, then YOU need to pay your employees more.

even the PAP is able to recognise this and they themselves have stated that singapore does not have minimum wage because it would be set so low that it would be make setting a minimum redundant!

source https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/wages/minimum-wages/definition/WCMS_439072/lang--en/index.htm

https://www.todayonline.com/big-read/perennial-debate-singapore-minimum-wage

https://www.pap.org.sg/news/ge2020-news/why-no-minimum-wage/

 

[Xeservico]

No competition in Sg? SME bosses all earn big big?

ThenPlease, please open an SME and challenge them, since they are making exorbitant profits and you can get business by charging less.

No worries.

You don't know that SME bosses earn a lot meh and need a lot of capital to do so meh?

 

[ponpokku]

and PAP solution is government will pay to subsidize companies who exploit and abuse workers through low wage with their workfare scheme ?

depends how you look at it .. you can say its social cost, but i see it as subsidizing the companies

then they tell you need to increase taxes because need to spend more on social schemes and help the poor .. but they dont do anything to companies that are exploiting the poor and paying them **** in the first place

i think the country needs more socially responsible companies rather than all the selfish ones that threaten to fire workers if a certain policy does not suit them

consumers must decide if you want to support such business practices. Nike does audit on their factories after backlash

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike_sweatshops

and yet they use the argument that min wage will cause unemployment. but you see all the factories making so much profit and yet cannot pay the workers decently

workfare ish just govt wriggling around issues as usual, instead of tackling the problem head on. they die die wanna act smart dun wan to be seen as taking ideas from ppl outside the establishment. wanna chut their own stunt create a new nomenclature or acronym to claim credit.

workfare idea ish introduced in usa, uk and aust, and these countries have min wage at the same time. clearly they are targeting different things, and workfare ish even a more controversal system in those countries than min wage ish.

in short, workfare was meant to be targeting ppl living on welfare and unwilling to work, try to get them out of welfare and start working. min wage ish targeting working ppl who didnt get a fair wage. sg ish not even a welfare state. white dogs just trying to smokescreen niah.

 

[sizzy6]

exactly. we are already having rocketing prices with FTs, the arguments against min wage dun stand.

even if we replace the entire ntuc ground workers with fw also. these cost savings will just top up the bonus for the management as they turn in record-breaking profits.

prices will not come down ..

price and wages are not co-related.

wages are being subsidized at 25-75% throughout the year .. are those companies gonna charge you cheaper ? not all companies are affected by covid also

DTF xiao long bao got cheaper ? breadtalk bread got cheaper ?

all the fast food .. mcdonalds,kfc .. dont seem to be affected by the virus .. they get subsidy .. they gonna reduce their prices for this year or not ?

 

[diracdelta]

tell me how 'fair' is fair? is there any quantifiable value to measure fairness? just like a cup of bubble. some people who like to drink they will say it fair to charge that amount. but people who don't like to drink they will think it is stupid to pay that kind of money to drink unhealthy sugar water.

To employer they think that it fair to pay that amount of salary for that kind of work. but to employee they will think that it is too low. so how to judge it is fair. so instead to set a standard, why not use the supply and demand to determined the value.

How competitive can a business be if it has to employ lowly educated persons by the truckload from the region to the extend that such practices are hailed by the international community as exploitation.

 

[Spirals-0]

tell him to his face la

 

[Poomer]

No competition in Sg? SME bosses all earn big big?

ThenPlease, please open an SME and challenge them, since they are making exorbitant profits and you can get business by charging less.

No worries.

Singapore only got SMEs? We are talking about massive industries with hundreds of thousands of jobs, like construction, manufacturing, retail, shipping. Singapore only 2 shipyards, both government linked and hire tens of thousands of foreign workers. Each foreign worker hired is a disincentive to increasing efficiency.

I did not specifically mention SME, so please do not presume that. Next time try broadening your view, if you only look outside from deep inside the well, you wont go far. No worries.

 

[sizzy6]

if it ish imposed then it has to. else FW will be the loophole to work around the regulations. for sg case, min wage ish oso a tool to drive out some % of FW that ish taking up jobs that sinkie can do.



sg dun have a blanket min wage as of now. so that ish wage differential not min wage. it ish exactly becos sg dun have min wage thats why this occurred and FWs competing with low income sinkies.

based on the proposal .. min wage for singaporeans only

you cannot abuse and switch to foreigner due to WP quota

the only reason they hire sinkie is because no quota .. if they can switch they would have switch .. with or without min wage

 

[diracdelta]

You are just being unreasonable. Money does not fall from the sky. If somebody wants more money, somebody always have to pay. If you do not know where to get more money to pay, then your proposal simply won't work. Others suggested you run for election which could be a good lesson to you. Then you'll learn that talking like you talk is easy, doing it is entirely a different thing.

Increasing labour cost will only hurt labour heavy industry - if your business is majorly labour over high capital equipment an increase in a unit of labour cost will lead to a larger overall increase in cost attributed to the labour component. The question then becomes why are these companies so reliant on low cost labour?

 

[_hulk_]

Don't take about increasing cost with a min. Wage? If pay at min. Wage, cost won't increased? I armchio Liao.

To an employer, your cost will increase when garment impose a min. Wage. They can either pass on the cost or just reduce employees or absorb the cost. Long run, biz not efficient will fold up. Hopefully rent will reduce as lesser ppl want to rent. Mkt will start to adjust by itself.

But the leakage is the FW policy. Employers will just hire more FW and reduce sinkies.

Min. Wage is more of showing humanity to low wage workers. Some ppl earn few hundreds in this high cost cty. Whole Singapore might experience higher cost initially but garment will also give out lesser monetary assistance to these ppl.

But garment will lose out hor. Lesser levy to collect! Do garment publish how much levy they collected annually?

 

[PlayerX]

whats the point to higher education and upgrading when bosses still wanna suppress your wage?

This is sad truth.

 

[traderF35]

You just wanna talk about minimum wage but don't wanna discuss about the cost. How is this even a discussion? Just begin unreasonable mah. You should cover all angles from demand supply and price tio bo?

As a consumer I gotta right to know if any party implement minimum wage what's the impact on the price mah. I paying more paying less paying more tax paying more GST etc etc etc... the possible effects go on. Like that then can discussion must have analysis.

DON'T ANYHOW ISSUE BLANK CHEQUE LAH... *face palm*

 

[searcher1]

Because, lets say now the cleaners are earning below 1300. Or as what some EDMWers claim, 800/mth to 900/mth.

Then they should just quit the job and go for upskilling https://www.ntuclearninghub.com/sgunitedskills/
Course is paid using skills future and it pays them 1200 allowance a month.

Unless some edmwers here want to claim that upskilling requires more effort than working as a cleaner.

Fantastic idea !

But does the elderly cleaner know english well enough to attend course ... or the lecturer can converse well in Hokkien & Teochew ?

 

[Poomer]

even if we replace the entire ntuc ground workers with fw also. these cost savings will just top up the bonus for the management as they turn in record-breaking profits.

prices will not come down ..

price and wages are not co-related.

wages are being subsidized at 25-75% throughout the year .. are those companies gonna charge you cheaper ? not all companies are affected by covid also

DTF xiao long bao got cheaper ? breadtalk bread got cheaper ?

all the fast food .. mcdonalds,kfc .. dont seem to be affected by the virus .. they get subsidy .. they gonna reduce their prices for this year or not ?

Agreed, this shows the claim that reducing reliance on FW will increase prices perpetrated by companies and our government is false. They are just protecting their bottomline,

 

[sizzy6]

workfare ish just govt wriggling around issues as usual, instead of tackling the problem head on. they die die wanna act smart dun wan to be seen as taking ideas from ppl outside the establishment. wanna chut their own stunt create a new nomenclature or acronym to claim credit.

workfare idea ish introduced in usa, uk and aust, and these countries have min wage at the same time. clearly they are targeting different things, and workfare ish even a more controversal system in those countries than min wage ish.

in short, workfare was meant to be targeting ppl living on welfare and unwilling to work, try to get them out of welfare and start working. min wage ish targeting working ppl who didnt get a fair wage. sg ish not even a welfare state. white dogs just trying to smokescreen niah.

and they ask where the money come from ..

wage is paid by employers, not the governmeent. stupid ibs

min wage will not increase cost of living by anything significant if there are any .. the transport fare hike maybe more ..

 

[GameTheory]

minimum wage wouldn't benefit locals at all

It will primarily benefit those low wage temp migrant workers...

Unless of course you raise the min wage to ridiculously high level, in which case, businesses will collapse

 

[theMKR]

Fantastic idea !

But does the elderly cleaner know english well enough to attend course ... or the lecturer can converse well in Hokkien & Teochew ?

what is the minimum requirement to enroll?

And my point here is not about purely upskilling, but also to develop the ingenuity of best path planning.

ok dun want lim kopi

 

[theMKR]

So how about those who replace these cleaners?

also go upskilling lor....