Low Salary the root of all evil

My daughter was paid RM2.50 per hour, by a sub-letter at Parkson Grand, but she can work 12 hours per day, every day of the week. Minus 2 hours for breaks, she earned RM25 per day unless she took a day leave, or work half day only.

I gave her RM6 for her lunch and dinner. I spent RM6 on petrol sending her in the morning and picking her up at mid night.

Even ignoring my labour cost, the maximum net pay is RM9, every day, inclusive of Sunday and public holiday.

Luckily she worked only for about 50 days, making her net income RM450, or RM270 per month.

If you take into account room rent, at about RM200/month, the net income is only RM70.

Can she save more by spending less on food and transportation? Food is unlikely because she already eat only rice and egg, because food is expensive at shopping complexes and there was no canteen or subsidised food there. I usually spend about RM4 but can manage RM3 once in a while.

She can save on transportation by taking a bus, but at 8 km, and travelling at mid-night, it should cost her about RM1.50 per trip, and takes 1.5 hours, and extra hour compared to when I send her personally. A saving of only 3 ringgit but at a cost of extra 2 hours of her time.

Even when I send and pick her personally using a car, she always feel so tired, and she is an athletic teen-ager. She cannot do anything after work.

The best that any normal worker can do is to earn RM150 per month, if she works 12 hours per day, 30 days a month.

This is not inclusive of medical bills. If she falls sick she won't get any help on her medical bill, while losing her source of income. She even has to pay for her own clothing.

RM2.50/hour may seem a lot, but it shows to you how miserable living with that amount at Kota Kinabalu.

Illegal immigrants can survive with lower by staying at illegal housings, eating just rice and salt everyday, steal electricity and water. If you don't do that, I don't think you can manage to survive feeding a family, unless you steal from others, or do illegal businesses.

In fact for many jobs in Sabah, the salary is even lower. She was offered another job at RM15 per 8-hour shift. Rather than work at such a rate, I'd rather that she work for her mother, washing dishes and sweeping the floor.

At KFC, they are paid RM2.40 per hour but food may be provided but the work is hard. My daughter prefer the easier work at shopping complexes. I encourage her to work there in order to gain some experience but let her see for herself the suffering of the poorer community who are not well educated.

The root of all the evils is the low rate of salaries that employers are allowed to pay. At such low rates, only illegal immigrants, using illegal means of survival can accept the job offers. It should be so obvious for every honest human being.

Because there are so many dishonest human beings in Malaysia, we have to suffer the crimes and illegality and destructions that we experience everyday. Because Malaysians know that we depend so much on these illegal immigrants, we allow all the crimes and illegality that they commit, and in the end we all suffer.

Many people keep on blaming illegal immigrants. Much of it is due to racist sentiments because many of them are muslims or are not of own own tribes and do not practise our own cultures. Sometimes I wonder if they can practise any culture when they live such a harsh life.

All will be solved easily once we set a minimum wage where human beings can live comfortably legally. We should set it at RM3.00 per hour. At least workers can have a rest and improve themselves if they want to.

This is the secret of the success of Singapore. Singapore has only one aim. To increase the salary of their workers wheneven it can. It may not have a minimum wage, but all employes must pay a minimum amount of S$300 per worker per month, in 1990. I don't know the figure nowadays.