Time for Govt to do more for low wage workers
I refer to the article “Time for Government to do more for low-wage workers: MP Zainal Sapari” (Channel NewsAsia, Feb 13).
It states that “In the last Parliament sitting in January, Manpower Minister Lim Swee Say said 59 per cent of private establishments with employees earning a basic monthly salary of up to S$1,000 had given or decided to give wage increases to these employees in 2014.
This included 31 per cent which gave the NWC’s recommended built-in wage increase of at least S$60 to this group of workers, Mr Lim added.”
59% gave or decided to give?
Since 59 per cent of private establishments “had given or decided to give wage increases” – what percentage actually gave it?
Since the reply in Parliament was last month – you mean that we still don’t what percentage gave as more than a year had lapsed from 2014?
Perhaps we still do not know what percentage “had decided” and may still be “deciding” more than a year later?
31 to 59% actually gave?
As to “This included 31 per cent which gave the NWC’s recommended built-in wage increase of at least S$60 to this group of workers” – does it mean that the actual percentage who gave may be somewhere in between 31 and 59 per cent?
6 in 10 gave?
What is perhaps unusual is that on the same day (Feb 13) – another media report (Straits Times) said something quite different – “But only about six in 10 private sector employers gave low-wage workers earning up to $1,000 a minimum pay hike of $60 in 2014, following the NWC recommendations that year, Manpower Minister Lim Swee Say told Parliament last month.”
2 different media quote Minister differently?
You can see that this media report said ” six in 10 private sector employers gave” against the CNA report’s 59 per cent “had given or decided to give wage increase”?
So, how can two different media reports on the same day, quoting the same Minister in Parliament on the same day – end up with two “different” versions?
Actually, giving the percentage of employers may be insufficient. What we need to know is what percentage of low-wage workers actually received it.
Less than 3 in 10 in 2012?
For illustration sake – let’s say those who didn’t give have a much higher number of such low-wage workers, compared to those who gave – the percentage who received may be as low as the more than 70% who did not get the recommended increase – the last time that this specific statistic was available in 2013 for 2012.
Also, since at a press conference in May last year – the assistant secretary-general of the NTUC Cham Hui Fong said ““If this group are the workers that are vulnerable and they are indeed doing something to upskill themselves and management is also making efforts to improve the productivity, then I think we ought to ensure that there is a reasonable wage increase for them.
Why nobody talking about $1,100, only $1,000?
Hence, we take the decision, why not we just move S$100 to S$1,100, to really take care of this bigger group of people who are still earning in, certainly, the lower percentile”” (“NWC recommends S$60 wage increment for workers earning up to S$1,100 monthly“, Today, May 29) – why are we still only talking about $1,000?
Shouldn’t we also be talking about $1,100?
Leong Sze Hian
