Weaken the Trade Unions!

The private sector should follow the Government's lead in declaring Oct 23 a public holiday, the MTUC said. Its president Syed Sharir Syed Mahmud said employers should give their workers a paid holiday as part of their corporate social responsibility. “Do not force them to take annual leave or deduct their salaries for the day as it will defeat the purpose. To many workers, the day’s salary is important for their survival,” he said. “In the spirit of Hari Raya and Deepavali, I hope private sector employers will give the workers this gift.” He added that the long festival was similar to the Christmas and New Year holiday breaks in Britain and the United States. Syed Sharir said a long uninterrupted break would help boost local tourism. Meanwhile, the Malaysian Employers Federation said the private sector should be given a choice to decide whether to treat Oct 23 as a holiday.

What I feel that the nation is in currently, is an inflation cycle. Which when explained by a newbie like me, is when demand exceeds supply and output prices soar. The simple solutions usually are:

1. Increase central bank interest rates (which has been raised meagrely in the last quarter of the year, but estimated to be raised again by the end of the year)

2. Weaken trade unions. Although this is a hot issue widely debated, I'm on this side of the argument.

Here's what the UK government thought in the 1990s:

Recent research shows that trade unions have used their powers in ways which adversely affected labour costs, productivity and jobs. Managements who recognised and negotiated with trade unions were more likely to suffer job losses than managements which did not. In general trade unions tended to push up the earnings of people they represented while blocking the improvements in productivity which are needed to pay for these higher earnings.

--White Paper on Employment for the 1990s, CM. 540

3. Reduce government spending.


IMO, (note the bold) , Pak Lah's administration are doing 1 and 3 but although number 2 seems somewhat risky to control, (politically risky), CUEPACS and MTUC have made some press releases lately, which seem to have grabbed the headlines, given the current inflationary crisis. This affects workers' productivity as (you know, mentality and the sort of things, I'm not going further into it)

Conclusion, (although radical and unpopular), introduce anti-union laws (law is always a dirty and boring tool in the modern world), and take more aggressive stances to reduce government budget deficit and expenditure.

:) Signing out, till next time.