minimum wage with minimum satisfaction

Hong Kong recently passed the Minimum Wage Ordinance, guaranteeing workers with the Statutory Minimum Wage rate of HK$28 per hour. It stirred up quite a bit in the society and I happened to be in Hong Kong during the Labour Day period to observe a little.

The move towards minimum wage started with the good intention of protecting the working class of the society. But things turned out to be quite messy. The government mandated the 28 bucks, but was silent on lunch hour and paid leaves. So employees rolled out no-pay lunch hour and no-pay leave. Some forced employees to declare self-employed, while others went for apprentices. I mean, which employer would want to pay more? On the other hand, employers felt the pinch too. Some were faced with the situation of workers earning equal if not more than their foremen. Older/senior workers found themselves getting almost the same pay cheque as newbies. To maintain staff morale, some bosses had no choice but to raise the salary across the board in the face of rising raw material and operating cost.

Personally, while I recognize that the intention was good, I still feel that some things are best left to the free market to decide. If a company employed 2 workers but now had only enough money to keep 1, who would suffer in the end? The worker who lost the job, the worker who has to take up 2 man's load, and the company which sees a drop in productivity. The company will then lose its edge in the competition, forced by market circumstances to close shop, now both are unemployed.

I kind of wish ours would think it through, seriously.