Minimum Daily Wage Raised

[PhilHarries]

Whenever an article like this comes up I hope it gives all those "it's so cheap to live in Thailand" types cause to reflect on the reason for it being cheap.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not excluding myself here. Quite often we are discussing prices of stuff here in Viet Nam and will exclaim something like "that only works out at ten dollars, ppffft peanuts!". This is forgetting that some of the Vietnamese can speak varying degrees of English and ten bucks to them is a significant amount.

Don't forget the amounts bandied about are PER DAY and generally those on the minimum wage are working long hours for it and often producing fashionable accessories for western countries.

[Heng]

Never mind Robski, he thinks money grows on trees.

Nah, just don't believe in handouts.

[A_Traveller]

A thought, perhaps a well known orchid exporter uses some of the profits generated from the set of businesses to contribute to enhancing opportunities for those who in this society, through only the fault of birth do not have access to the capital to create such enterprise. Maybe.... or tragically probably not. What is really interesting is the successes of the true micro-finance initiatives which can, and do, make huge improvements in people's lives.

Regards

[TAWP]

Never mind Robski, he thinks money grows on trees.

Nah, just don't believe in handouts.

Read the sentence backwards. Didn't tell Robski to never mind you...

[Robski]

Well I guess if you have to explain that you're not as smart as you'd like to think or Heng for that matter.

Funny really if it wasn't so sad, sad and shallow.

Heng being such a high roller and begrudging the people of the people of the country he lives in a very small amount of money, when that money is not coming from him anyway.

I guess the reasoning is that for him to appear so rich he needs to live in a country where the population is so poor.

What would your contribution be to increasing the minimum wage Heng?

[Heng]

Never mind Robski, he thinks money grows on trees.

Nah, just don't believe in handouts.

Read the sentence backwards. Didn't tell Robski to never mind you...

Trees on grows money thinks he...

Ach so. Thanks for the clarification, Tawp.

[TAWP]

'He' being Robski.

(It's easy to give away other peoples money.)

[Heng]

A thought, perhaps a well known orchid exporter uses some of the profits generated from the set of businesses to contribute to enhancing opportunities for those who in this society, through only the fault of birth do not have access to the capital to create such enterprise. Maybe.... or tragically probably not. What is really interesting is the successes of the true micro-finance initiatives which can, and do, make huge improvements in people's lives.

Regards

We do actually, we just don't advertise it.

I just disagree with national handout policies.

[Heng]

What would your contribution be to increasing the minimum wage Heng?

At 4 Baht per worker, just a few hundred Baht per day, although we've been paying above the minimum wage rate for as long as it's been stipulated (when I first got here, it was 176 a day).

They could increase it by 400 Baht a day and it still wouldn't change their work ethic or ambition though. That comes from somewhere else and one sees such potential in maybe one out of fifty workers.

[A_Traveller]

We do actually, we just don't advertise it.

I just disagree with national handout policies.

Taking those in order, in this case I happily acknowledge that statement, however, on your second point, a minimum national wage is not a hand-out policy, {see below} simply a method to ensure an appropriate level of pay for an individual to survive.

They could increase it by 400 Baht a day and it still wouldn't change their work ethic or ambition though. That comes from somewhere else and one sees such potential in maybe one out of fifty workers.

Because of the attitude which rejects the principal of the efficacy of social mobility. If an individual is taught, literally, that their horizons are narrow, and can see through experience that opportunities for betterment are limited by the society they are in, then this will at best result in those believing 'this is their lot' and at worst, a societal 'underclass' which believes that they owe nothing to the society around them and so become disaffected or disruptive.

Loath as I am to make personal observations, I can only but compare some of the attitudes displayed to those who in South Africa believed that a black would not benefit from education or opportunity. To be, in an what has became an infamous phrase, just "the hewers of wood and the drawers of water".

Curiously the most zealous proponents of 'no handouts' are often those who have benefited from them {such as educational grants, government sponsored business loans, development area grants, which curiously are often not so described}, and access to free {or subsidised} education.

The US, in particular, is a country which, almost uniquely, has been driven by immigrattion, by definition a group likely to be higher achievers than those who remain, and from the real social mobility that the US has, for so long, championed. In other words an individual believed that their children by dint of hard work {and education} could attain their 'house on the hill', even if they knew it was unlikely for them. Though there are those who believe that such mobility has been eroded, with a concomitant affect on the US psyche.

Here, sadly, the emphasis on societal stability and an unwillingness to invest in education for the majority of the population continues to weave its pernicious influence.

Regards

[FarangNoi21]

A_Traveller,

You really have no idea what you are talking about. How exactly is raising the minimum wage going to help poor Thais become more educated?

If a business owner spends 10,000 a month on employees, and minimum wage increases 10%, then he either fires 10% of his employees or he raises his prices 10%... You want to live in an ideal world where the owner just eats the 10% loss because he is the owner and should be punished for his success (Of course, you aren't a business owner yourself, so it makes it much easier for you to decide that someone else should be penalized). This is a very popular ideology in the West.

How do you feel about double pricing? You must believe that farang should pay more than Thais because they are wealthy, correct? By paying double, it will give poor Thais a better chance at improving their life. But I think its more likely that you get mad when the motorcycle taxi drops you off at English First and wants 30 baht instead of 20 baht but you want Heng to pay his sister 30 baht instead of 20 baht.

Edited October 19, 2007 by FarangNoi21

[Heng]

We do actually, we just don't advertise it.

I just disagree with national handout policies.

Taking those in order, in this case I happily acknowledge that statement, however, on your second point, a minimum national wage is not a hand-out policy, {see below} simply a method to ensure an appropriate level of pay for an individual to survive.

They could increase it by 400 Baht a day and it still wouldn't change their work ethic or ambition though. That comes from somewhere else and one sees such potential in maybe one out of fifty workers.

Because of the attitude which rejects the principal of the efficacy of social mobility. If an individual is taught, literally, that their horizons are narrow, and can see through experience that opportunities for betterment are limited by the society they are in, then this will at best result in those believing 'this is their lot' and at worst, a societal 'underclass' which believes that they owe nothing to the society around them and so become disaffected or disruptive.

You're making assumptions, A_T. Mine is an observation, not an attitude nor policy blocking the social mobility of my employees (and certainly not other people's employees). IMO you're probably taking an armchair manager's opinion on this and have never employed a significant number of people anywhere. The poor and downtrodden aren't all made up of folks who are brimming with ambition and diligence, even when faced with fixed open door opportunities. And whatever attitudes they have certainly aren't all imprinted on them by the well to do of each particular society (ala "it's the man that made me what I am" type nonsense). Like it or not, often times they are simply folks who come from generations of underachievement, lack of savings and investing, and lack of pursuit of an education to the point of it being a family tradition.

I just happen to have had the experience of paying workers above and below the minimum wage both here and back in the US. And again IMO the national pay rate has little effect on who a person really is on the inside:

Here: It's well known in my organization that we give both moral and financial support to those who wish to extend their educational qualifications through education via correspondance ("suksa pooyai") with time off for Saturday testing/exams. One in fifty is a good estimate in terms of numbers who "jump" at this opportunity. The same goes for overtime shifts and extra paid responsibility type opportunities (which inevitably lead to more opportunities)... maybe one in thirty are the numbers in that respect.

Back in Texas: Same thing. Out of 3-4 dozen immigrant employees over the years (mostly Hispanic and Asian origin), only a handful were savers and took advantage of our no/low interest loans (available to all employees) to strike out on their own... that handful had a drive that came from within. I personally know 5-6 who were literally fresh off the boat with $100-$150, worked for us for less than 2 decades, and who went on to become owners of their own restaurants, gas stations, body shops, and other small scale but comfortable living type businesses. The opportunity was there for all to take, despite the fact that we were paying everyone well BELOW minimum wage. Of course technically they wouldn't have qualified since just about everyone was an illegal alien anyway.

Edited October 19, 2007 by Heng

[Gimbo]

Is it not so that if you pay workers enough to put something aside, to have that car and that TV, washing machine you create consumers. Factory owners, by paying their workers a decent and fair wage, you are also enabling them to purchase the products they are making.

As far as I can recall that is what really started the economy in the west. One of the pioneers in this was Henry Ford, who by paying his workers a decent wage, also enabled them to buy the cars his factories where producing.

Thailand has 65 million people. Imagine the wealth that could really be gained for the rich and mighty, if they where willing to invest in decent wages and education for their workforce.

But no, that is not going to happen. To many nay sayers here...

[Heng]

Is it not so that if you pay workers enough to put something aside, to have that car and that TV, washing machine you create consumers. Factory owners, by paying their workers a decent and fair wage, you are also enabling them to purchase the products they are making.

It's not as black and white as that. That's like saying corruption will disappear if you just raise, double, triple, quadruple policy, army, and politician salaries. Or that there wouldn't be crime in the world if everyone were wealthier. Or that Somchai or Somying the factory worker wouldn't be spending 2,000 Baht on their mobile phone bill if they were making 8,000 instead of 6,000 Baht a month.

[FarangNoi21]

Is it not so that if you pay workers enough to put something aside, to have that car and that TV, washing machine you create consumers. Factory owners, by paying their workers a decent and fair wage, you are also enabling them to purchase the products they are making.

As far as I can recall that is what really started the economy in the west. One of the pioneers in this was Henry Ford, who by paying his workers a decent wage, also enabled them to buy the cars his factories where producing.

Thailand has 65 million people. Imagine the wealth that could really be gained for the rich and mighty, if they where willing to invest in decent wages and education for their workforce.

But no, that is not going to happen. To many nay sayers here...

"Henry Ford was a pioneer of "welfare capitalism" designed to improve the lot of his workers and especially to reduce the heavy turnover that had many departments hiring 300 men per year to fill 100 slots. Efficiency meant hiring and keeping the best workers. On January 5, 1914, Ford announced his five-dollar per day program. The revolutionary program called for a reduction in length of the workday from 9 to 8 hours, a 5 day work week, and a raise in minimum daily pay from $2.34 to $5 for qualifying workers.

Ford had been criticized by Wall Street for starting the 40 hour work week and a minimum wage. He proved, however, that paying people more would enable Ford workers to afford the cars they were producing and therefore be good for the economy. Ford labeled the increased compensation as profit-sharing rather than wages. The wage was offered to men over age 22, who had worked at the company for 6 months or more, and, importantly, conducted their lives in a manner of which Ford's "Sociological Department" approved. They frowned on heavy drinking and gambling. The Sociological Department used 150 investigators and support staff to maintain employee standards; a large percentage of workers were able to qualify for the profit-sharing."

This seems more like paying a higher salary for better work than a government mandate to give people a wage increase.

Edited October 19, 2007 by FarangNoi21

[Gimbo]

Is it not so that if you pay workers enough to put something aside, to have that car and that TV, washing machine you create consumers. Factory owners, by paying their workers a decent and fair wage, you are also enabling them to purchase the products they are making.

It's not as black and white as that. That's like saying corruption will disappear if you just raise, double, triple, quadruple policy, army, and politician salaries. Or that there wouldn't be crime in the world if everyone were wealthier. Or that Somchai or Somying the factory worker wouldn't be spending 2,000 Baht on their mobile phone bill if they were making 8,000 instead of 6,000 Baht a month.

Yup, be a nay sayer. Do nothing, just leave it as it is. But you have to start with something.

Mrs Somchai knows her husband, so she is in control of the family economy. She takes the extra 2000 baht and saves some for the childrens education. The rest she uses to start up a small business. She hires her niece and soon there is a thriving little family business going. They are able to pay their loans on time, so the bank is happy, they are able to buy that Honda Motosai, so the company that produces parts for them where Mr Somchai is working is happy.

Now they even have a little money to spare, so they take that trip to see the ocean and spend the night at a hotel. The hotel owner is happy. Becouse everyone is making money off Somchai now, who is in a training program funded by Honda to make him a better worker. And he gets an even better wage to bring home to Mrs Somchai. Mr. Somchai may well spend a little extra on phone bills to call Khun Da and Khun Mae in the village. The money spent makes the telephone company happy, and the old folks are proud of their son who is doing so well in the big city. And the economy keeps going up, now that everyone makes money.

Of course this is overly simplified. It's a post on a deadbeat web forum for nay sayers and whingers. What did you expect

[TAWP]

You still haven't explained where the 2K extra per worker should come from...

[Gimbo]

You still haven't explained where the 2K extra per worker should come from...

I will write slowly so that you may understand

The 2000 baht will come from wherever the factory owners get capital to make investments. Becouse that is what this is. And investment in human capital. In the long run they will regain their investment becouse they are now selling more products, becouse there are now more money circulating ammong people.

Also since their workers are now highly skilled, they are making better quality products at a faster pace, at reduced cost becouse labour turnover is reduced.

Just like they invest in machinery, new factories, research, and everything else that in the future may bring in the money, so they can show themselves off at fancy parties, and talk down to the workers whose backs they are living on.

Come on, even the old lady selling som tam on the corner understand about investment. After all she dared spending some money to start up her thriving little business, and by making the best som tam there is, she has a customer goes back to that corner, time and time again to buy the best sum tam in that corner of the universe.

A little less nay saying, and looking down the nose at people, and things may change for the better. Even in a 3rd world backwater like Thailand.

[Payboy]

A little less nay saying, and looking down the nose at people, and things may change for the better. Even in a 3rd world backwater like Thailand.

a bit of a contradiction there, no

Edited October 19, 2007 by Payboy

[A_Traveller]

A quick comment. My aim was to broaden the discussion from just the minimum wage through to the supporting associative infrastructure, wisely or not. I wasn't intending to over personalise this discussion, however, the 'armchair manager' comment is, in the reality of the analogue hysterically funny. Suffice it to say my responsibilities in life have included multiple hundreds employed simultaneously across three continents.

My modest experience has shown me that, if one is able to move past the inevitable conditioning of expectation {I'm tempted to recall and paraphrase the Jesuitical phrase 'give me a boy for 7 years and I shall show {make/break} the man'}. In Africa for example, children of families who still evaluate their worth in head of cattle {and think I'm poor because I don't have any} are now doctors, lawyers, engineers, and look to see their children achieve more then them. Are they exceptional per se? In my view no, they are an emerging force within that continent.

Daring to add the T word here, my greatest disappointment in Thaksin's government was its wilful disregard for real educational reform, and, yes, just a minimum wage statute does not make a new life, though it does help. Maybe I'm having a few quixotic days but one day these windmills will fall for the benefit of all.

Regards

Edited October 19, 2007 by A_Traveller

[Gimbo]

A little less nay saying, and looking down the nose at people, and things may change for the better. Even in a 3rd world backwater like Thailand.

a bit of a contradiction there, no

Not at all. Thailand is a 3rd world country, and she will continue to be so, until those with the power to change it is doing something about it. Unfortunately these are the same people that are conducting most of the looking down of noses.

Meanwhile Somchai is working on the minimum wage, realizing that he will never be able to better his own situation. For that his debts to the chinese loan sharks he had to go to so that they may keep the familly land in the village and the burden of supporting his huge family is just to high. There is never enough money to put aside, and his kids will just have to make do with six years in school, then face going down the same path as him. So why should he put in but a minimum effort when he is at work? After all, they are only paying him a minimum wage.

[Acquiesce]

"Henry Ford was a pioneer of "welfare capitalism" designed to improve the lot of his workers and especially to reduce the heavy turnover that had many departments hiring 300 men per year to fill 100 slots. Efficiency meant hiring and keeping the best workers. On January 5, 1914, Ford announced his five-dollar per day program. The revolutionary program called for a reduction in length of the workday from 9 to 8 hours, a 5 day work week, and a raise in minimum daily pay from $2.34 to $5 for qualifying workers.

Ford had been criticized by Wall Street for starting the 40 hour work week and a minimum wage. He proved, however, that paying people more would enable Ford workers to afford the cars they were producing and therefore be good for the economy. Ford labeled the increased compensation as profit-sharing rather than wages. The wage was offered to men over age 22, who had worked at the company for 6 months or more, and, importantly, conducted their lives in a manner of which Ford's "Sociological Department" approved. They frowned on heavy drinking and gambling. The Sociological Department used 150 investigators and support staff to maintain employee standards; a large percentage of workers were able to qualify for the profit-sharing."

This seems more like paying a higher salary for better work than a government mandate to give people a wage increase.

If you plagiarise someones writing then at least have the decency to credit them next time.

[FarangNoi21]

You still haven't explained where the 2K extra per worker should come from...

I will write slowly so that you may understand

The 2000 baht will come from wherever the factory owners get capital to make investments. Becouse that is what this is. And investment in human capital. In the long run they will regain their investment becouse they are now selling more products, becouse there are now more money circulating ammong people.

what if the products are exported?

[FarangNoi21]

"Henry Ford was a pioneer of "welfare capitalism" designed to improve the lot of his workers and especially to reduce the heavy turnover that had many departments hiring 300 men per year to fill 100 slots. Efficiency meant hiring and keeping the best workers. On January 5, 1914, Ford announced his five-dollar per day program. The revolutionary program called for a reduction in length of the workday from 9 to 8 hours, a 5 day work week, and a raise in minimum daily pay from $2.34 to $5 for qualifying workers.

Ford had been criticized by Wall Street for starting the 40 hour work week and a minimum wage. He proved, however, that paying people more would enable Ford workers to afford the cars they were producing and therefore be good for the economy. Ford labeled the increased compensation as profit-sharing rather than wages. The wage was offered to men over age 22, who had worked at the company for 6 months or more, and, importantly, conducted their lives in a manner of which Ford's "Sociological Department" approved. They frowned on heavy drinking and gambling. The Sociological Department used 150 investigators and support staff to maintain employee standards; a large percentage of workers were able to qualify for the profit-sharing."

This seems more like paying a higher salary for better work than a government mandate to give people a wage increase.

If you plagiarise someones writing then at least have the decency to credit them next time.

did you miss these things -----> " " " " "

you are like the worst English teacher ever kid.

[Acquiesce]

"Henry Ford was a pioneer of "welfare capitalism" designed to improve the lot of his workers and especially to reduce the heavy turnover that had many departments hiring 300 men per year to fill 100 slots. Efficiency meant hiring and keeping the best workers. On January 5, 1914, Ford announced his five-dollar per day program. The revolutionary program called for a reduction in length of the workday from 9 to 8 hours, a 5 day work week, and a raise in minimum daily pay from $2.34 to $5 for qualifying workers.

Ford had been criticized by Wall Street for starting the 40 hour work week and a minimum wage. He proved, however, that paying people more would enable Ford workers to afford the cars they were producing and therefore be good for the economy. Ford labeled the increased compensation as profit-sharing rather than wages. The wage was offered to men over age 22, who had worked at the company for 6 months or more, and, importantly, conducted their lives in a manner of which Ford's "Sociological Department" approved. They frowned on heavy drinking and gambling. The Sociological Department used 150 investigators and support staff to maintain employee standards; a large percentage of workers were able to qualify for the profit-sharing."

This seems more like paying a higher salary for better work than a government mandate to give people a wage increase.

If you plagiarise someones writing then at least have the decency to credit them next time.

did you miss these things -----> " " " " "

you are like the worst English teacher ever kid.

So adding quotation marks is crediting your source? I don't think so and copyright issues are applicable.

English teacher? Don't believe everything you make up in your head, it's not healthy.

[FarangNoi21]

well good luck with your ebay business then.

[Gimbo]

You still haven't explained where the 2K extra per worker should come from...

I will write slowly so that you may understand

The 2000 baht will come from wherever the factory owners get capital to make investments. Becouse that is what this is. And investment in human capital. In the long run they will regain their investment becouse they are now selling more products, becouse there are now more money circulating ammong people.

what if the products are exported?

Well, with a highly motivated and skilled workforce, producing higher quality products, the export industry, who even today cannot compete with lower wage countries like Laos and Vietnam, Thailand will enable itself to compete on the world market selling quality products made in Thailand. So in this sector also, the country has everything to win by investing in human capital.

[Gimbo]

This article explains it so much better:

A Mexican migrant to the U.S. is five times more productive than one who stays home. Why is that?

The answer is not the obvious one: This country has more machinery or tools or natural resources. Instead, according to some remarkable but largely ignored research—by the World Bank, of all places—it is because the average American has access to over $418,000 in intangible wealth, while the stay-at-home Mexican's intangible wealth is just $34,000.

But what is intangible wealth, and how on earth is it measured? And what does it mean for the world's people—poor and rich? That's where the story gets even more interesting.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/122854.html

[TAWP]

You are welcome to set up a biz and give your workers 50% higher wage then other companies, for the same job and same qualifications, out of your goodness of heart.

Talk is cheap.

Edited October 19, 2007 by TAWP

[Gimbo]

You are welcome to set up a biz and give your workers 50% higher wage then other companies, for the same job and same qualifications, out of your goodness of heart.

Talk is cheap.

Well THANK YOU!

I was just waiting for your approval