Pakatan Alternative Budget Looking at ‘Floor Wage’

Malaysiakini

The Pakatan working committee on the 2012 alternative budget announced today that it is looking to introduce a “floor wage” concept.

Speaking to reporters after the committee’s weekly meeting, the coalition’s de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim said that this is different from minimum wage, which keeps wages “stuck” at a certain level.

“We say floor wage to avoid confusion. What we need is to enhance the income of workers, and not to have it stuck as what is termed as minimum wage,” he said, after the meeting which involved trade unions and economists.
Anwar (left) added that, however, it cannot be done in isolation and should be carried out concurrently with policies to cut corruption and raise efficiency, particularly in the government sector and government-linked companies.

“We regret that even GLCs like Proton and Perodua pay basic wages of below the poverty line at RM650 a month.

“With alternative policy to reduce corruption, raise efficiency, no corruption and the lowering of costs through proper tender and renegotiation of unfair deals like highway tolls, we hope to have more savings and increased revenue…allowing us to be able to assist workers with a better and fairer deal,” he said.

Adding to this, working committee member and PKR vice president Tian Chua said that what Pakatan aims to have are annual productivity and income targets, to gradually solve the conundrum of suppressed wages.

“Minimum wage is only a tool because there is no level playing field for workers,” said the Batu MP.

Shifting low-skilled industry abroad

Among the measures considered, said committee member and PAS-Kuala Selangor MP Dzulkefly Ahmad is following the footsteps of Singapore by shifting low value low wage industry outside Malaysia.

“Our critique of the situation is the over-reliance on low skill foreign workers. This is the bottle neck stopping the country from breaking away from shackle of low wages.

“We cannot address this with the existence of foreign workers, who not only compete with locals for jobs but also come in every two years at the same level of wages,” he said.

DAP representative and Klang MP Charles Santiago added that all this would require comprehensive labour market reform, which among others would address issues like outsourcing which exposes workers to abuse.

The Pakatan working committee on the alternative budget meets weekly, and intends to unveil its alternative budget before the October tabling of the 2013 Federal Budget in Parliament.

Link to full article