Saturday, May 21, 2011

OVERWORKED AND UNDERPAID



I don’t understand why minimum wage is not carried out in Malaysia. The cost of living is rising and inflation is getting worse, and the government is being buruk siku with the subsidy and GST is going to be implemented, but our salary is still very, very low and our lives are miserable about it. I know a lot of people who are stressed out to go to work. Why? Because they are underpaid but they have to spend 9-12 hours working. But at the end of the month, after paying bills etc they are left with nothing. And you think these people enjoy their work? Heck, if I’m paid about RM 5,000, I will never complain of having to work weekends. NEVER. People who are against minimum wage all live comfortably or are employers pfff

A case in point:
            A maid is paid RM600. Maids in Msia are mostly from Indonesia because they are willing to-RM600 is a lot in their currency. A local maid, now if you are paying her RM600, of course she is not willing. Imagine, having to wake up at 4am to make breakfast and prepare anak-anak tuan for school. After that clean the house, wash the clothes, cook lunch, take care of the children and even worse if the home has little babies or old parents-constant watch all the time. In the afternoon, make afternoon snacks and followed by dinner and put the children to sleep. Seems easy yes? Then why do working parents need maids? Think again. IT’S. NOT. EASY. Only Indonesian maids are willing to do all that.
            
 Local maids or orang tempatan if they are paid RM600, RM100 goes for electricity, RM50 water. And if they spend RM10 perday for food at home, that’s RM300 permonth. At the end of the day, she is left with RM50. How about the kids’ pocket money? The books the kids have to use at school? The house rent? That’s why our locals do not want to work as maids. It gives them stress and it’s definitely not worth it.
            
 Lemme give another scenario. If they are paid a minimum RM1200, at least they can save about a few hundreds here and there. We then could raise the employment level, people will start going to work and we don’t need foreign labours. Then people would stop accusing the foreigners for this and that, when it’s our people who are doing it.Meh
             
I was surprised to learn that waiters/waitresses in Korea earn about RM3,000 permonth. Imagine if this situation applies to Malaysia. People would go working in droves rather than lazing around rempit-ing or facebook-ing. Oh, need visuals? Higher income ------> higher productivity. Don't believe me? Go and check who leaves work early or on time. It's always, more often than not, the lower income group. Go ahead and see for yourself.
             
What about the fact that 9 out of 10 countries with most competitive economy in the world all have low minimum wage?
            
 You know, dear employers, keeping all that money in doesn’t save the economy you know. The economy will improve when people go out and spend or do loans. In Japan, the economy gets worse because they keep saving and they don’t take loans, to the extent, the banks had to offer 0% interest in order to encourage the citizens to do loans. Of course, overspending also brings about bad effects but stagnant economy is even worse!
                    
Let’s take the case of undergrads. In Msia now undergrads are offered RM1500 even though they should be given RM2200 basic and some bonus. Nope, not happening. My sister is an undergrad accountant with 7 years of working experience. She’s working now with a salary of RM1800 and NO BONUS nor OVERTIME nor RENUMERATIONS. Imagine that. Now let’s calculate her spending. RM600 for a flimsy cheap bad car, RM500 rent, RM 300 gas, RM200 the dreaded PTPN, RM200 bills. What’s left? RM0. That’s life without minimum wage for you. What’s she going to eat? Dust? My shoe?
                    
And people complain that the young generations today don’t want to work hard. FUDGE OFF! You underpay them and treat them like slaves, and you expect them to work hard?
                   
 Our wage should reflect our standard cost of living. Should the SCOL goes down, then the minimum wage should go down too. 

Please read more on these issues.
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