But that’s still not all. The third strategy: the PAP opened the floodgates to an uncontrolled influx of cheaper labour, which forces the wages of Singaporeans to be depressed even further. And with the depressed wages, who benefits? The PAP – who owns the largest companies in Singapore, and thus higher profits. But the influx of migrant workers in itself is not the problem. The problem is in how lowly they are paid. If they are paid low wages, then Singaporeans would be forced to accept low wages. But if they are paid higher and fairer wages, Singaporeans would be able to ask for higher wages. ***** But this is still not yet it – there is something even more sinister – the PAP’s fourth strategy. When Singaporeans complained about the influx of migrant workers, what we didn’t realise was that the main issue was not with migrant workers per se, but with the low wages that they were forced to accept, and thus what we were also forced to accept. Thus instead of advocating for higher wages, we thought that if we advocated for a stoppage of migrant workers, our wages would go up. That’s when the PAP swooped in with their fourth strategy – oh, you are worried with too many migrant workers? Fine, we will fine the companies – if they don’t employ Singaporeans, we will fine them. And thus the invention of the Foreign Worker Levy. The government had claimed that the levy ”is a pricing mechanism to regulate the number of Foreign Workers in Singapore“, however, evidently the levy had next to no effect in achieving this as the number of foreign workers in Singapore kept increasing. Again, what is the root problem here? The root problem here is that workers in Singapore are receiving too low wages and the solution would be to increase their wages, so that the economy can move towards finding its own equilibrium where businesses would pay the right wage and workers would work for the right price (of their labour). ***** But what is the net effect? Companies still cannot hire Singaporeans because wages are too low for most Singaporeans to be able to have a decent living. So, they still have to hire migrant workers – and because the government keeps increasing the foreign worker levies year on year, what this means is that companies have no choice but to keep hiring migrant workers and have no choice but to keep paying more and more to the PAP. You see what is happening here? Not only is the PAP cutting down on Singaporeans, it is also cutting down on the companies. The companies are forced to pay ever-increasing higher and higher rentals. Then, they are forced to hire migrant workers and to pay higher and higher foreign worker levies to the PAP. ***** In 2010, the total foreign worker levies collected were $1.9 billion and in 2011, it ballooned to S$2.5 billion. It is estimated that last year, the total levies collected would have been at least $3 billion! Do you see what is happening here? Singaporeans said there was a problem – our wages were being depressed, so the PAP came out with “their solution” – let’s fine companies via the foreign worker levies! But instead of solving the problem, companies still face the same problem and not only that, the problem worsened and increased the business costs, but meanwhile, the PAP continues to earn more and more – from both Singaporeans and the companies.
Posted on: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 10:21:02 +0000
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