APRIL 29 — It’s 3am in the morning, it’s when my father gets home.
I’m a taxi and government driver’s son. If that upsets you, I have a different idea: jump into a well.
While some quip a Saturday Labour Day (May 1) renders the holiday redundant, it does expose the “some” in this regard. For, a public holiday is still a workday for the menial staff, those who toil on holidays.
Those who do not see, or do not care about — don’t bother.
The mall security has to operate, so too the cleaning staff as foot-traffic mounts. The cineplexes’ minions have to assist ticket purchases, check entries and serve popcorn. The city and suburbs must continue, and to continue the workers must persist.
The silver lining is double pay. But when pay is low to begin with as all present polls indicate, is it enough? In a time where workers are deemed to be worth less and less by the year, are we surprised hospital cleaners protest their conditions and pay? Are we as surprised when they are arrested and thrown in lock-ups for protesting?
This refers to the continued drama of a group of hospital cleaners in Perak seeking backpay among other demands from a major conglomerate.
A conglomerate which claims innovation is at the heart of their operations. We earnestly hope they have a heart while they deal with those with the least skills and legal expertise to oppose them.
This May Day, questions loom about the future of Malaysian workers.
Decades of rights removed and wages suppressed now confront the disruptive powers of the information age — raising issues about termination or relocation when it comes to service and manufacturing jobs.
In fact, relevant to this column, the inevitable shift to the electronic method already displaces thousands of distributors of the old printed papers.
Sure, a rationalisation of work, economic value, government intervention, social protection nets and education continues, but while it does, the lives of workers must carry on too.
How does it carry on?
While the internet disrupts work creation and continuation, it also allows for unprecedented solidarity among workers.
It allows.
But whether the masses, the workers are able to harness the strength of the Internet is left to the people. Potential is available but the people have to pick it up.
I say this, because of the development earlier this year.
When workers at a delivery company rose up against poor rates. And they threw the packages on the ground, they stepped on them. There was a sense of anger.
People were angry their packages would be ruined, not that the staff were short-changed.
Most people did not care if the work conditions upset employees, they were just worried about their packages, the ones intended for them.
They just did not care. And that’s how it is.
I see the outrage people hold for miscarriages of justice, sometimes as it were, comments about young people or the abuse of young people, but they do not hold the same disdain for the poor.
The poor are beneath them, beyond them, if you read their comments.
And on this May Day, I would like to raise their concerns.
Wanting a fair go at salaries is not a crime.
Companies will seek to have outcomes that fit their needs. That’s the nature of companies.
But the government does not need to speak on behalf of companies, they have enough lawyers. These companies.
The average salary by industry admission is too low, by their own estimations. Not ours, but theirs.
If that is the case, why not pursue an aggressive campaign to increase salaries, because the nation is not lit up in the morning by good intentions. It is done by honest to goodness Malaysians, those people the industry feels surplus to requirement.
And maybe they are. In time.
But that’s the argument for companies, not by the state.
If data shows many graduates earn less than RM1,500 a month, why is the government not infuriated? Incensed?
It cares not, because their family, their close ones, do not endure this predicament. How many of their family graduate only to work as a hypermart counter staff?
The decades of class separation is coming to a confrontation. The time spent to enrich the many, the select few on the basis of circumventing the Chinese is coming to a logical conclusion.
It was always inevitable. What did they think?
Workers don’t know the poetry the rich learn in universities, but their lives are poetry in motion.
This government faces a double-whammy, realities of a world changing and a population not ready to embrace the work culture. Is it fair, of course not. Are the people, yes.
It is unfair to this Perikatan Nasional government, to wrestle the issue but that’s what it is. The next government has to cope with it too. The problems are way beyond them, but to pretend they are way beneath them is the wrong way to go.
Anyways, millions wait for leadership. Regardless of what elections pan out.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
