Minimum Wage.

I once worked as a shop assistant in a bookstore couple of years ago between the long interval of finishing the horrendous era of SPM and getting my fat ass into my in-the-middle-of-nowhere college. It was just an ordinary bookshop near my neighborhood, not the kind of extravaganza super-big widely known bookstore eg: Kinokuniya, MPH. Twas the time when one was busy looking for a part-time job either solely to kill time or to gorge some supplementary money, hence I managed to find myself two- one as an add math tutor for I really was good in math (ahem), and one as the aforesaid.

So working in a normal, unknown, small bookstore really put an ample burden on my shoulders merely because I had to do, well, most of the available jobs or else my boss would just shove a dustpan up my anal hole till I could freaking taste it in my mouth. You name it; from book binding to photocopying to name cards making to checking the inventory to buying the boss some fucking beers and cigarettes to sweeping the floor and mopping them (the she-boss taught me the right way to mop anyways) to cleaning the toilet first thing in the morning to taking all those tikam machines inside the store to locking the doors. To top it all, I had to labor my life with all the works from 10am to 10pm, with a two-hour rest in between and on many of my unfortunate crazy hectic days, I had to stand all the freaking time 'cause there were just strings of works needed to be done and the customers kept on coming restlessly, not being able to steal time even for me to let out a big fat sigh. Like a swarm of flies besieging a foul-smelled cow dung - this would be the very best way to depict my less blessed days.

If truth be told, I somewhat had experienced the sour-bitter taste of working arena, and I had to do it for only RM450 per month. Do the math and you would find out that I did all those nasty jobs for only RM2.34 per hour. Cheap, no? Too fucking cheap. But yeah I tried looking for a job at PizzaHut, KFC and even 7-11, but the wage they offered for hour-basis circled around that trivial amount, more or less.

Hence, the broaching of the subject on the importance of imposing minimum wage in our country.

In comparison between UK and Malaysia (even though this argument may not be valid as UK is depicted as one of developed countries meanwhile Malaysia is a developing one plus the Labour Union is stronger in UK), if I were to take a part-time job here the minimum wage would be around GBP6 or more, per hour.

The examples given would be:

UK: GBP6/hour x 5hours x 20days (for a month with weekend off) = GBP600

Malaysia: roughly put RM3.50/hour x 5hours x 20days = RM350

But that's not all as purchasing power parity plays a role in our life too. Here in UK, you can buy a month supply of groceries for approximately GBP70, or less. Unfortunately in Malaysia, a trolley filled with the same supply of groceries would sum up near RM300, more or less, I believe.

UK: GBP600 - GBP70 = GBP530

Malaysia: RM350 - RM300 = RM50

Now, can you fathom the reason why setting a minimum wage would be important to the labors?

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P/S: These all are only my humble opinions for I do only have a minimal, insufficient knowledge in economy.