Our local media keeps repeating that "in order for wages to go up, productivity must also go up". In other words, it means that workers are paid adequately for their current levels of productivity.
I am not sure why no one has taken issue with that statement. I suppose everyone, including the opposition, agrees that workers, especially low-waged workers, are paid adequately for their current levels of productivity.
In the real work, no boss will ever pay a worker more simply because he is more productive. Let me give you an example that most of us can relate to. Let's say you hire a maid, and you pay her $450 a month for spending 12 hours a day doing household chores. If your maid increases her productivity by 100% and completes the chores within 6 hours a day, will you double her pay? Or would you instead nod your head as though it is her duty to be more productive, and give her extra work to do without any pay increase? Search your own heart.
It is also the same in the corporate world. People who are more productive are given more work and more duties, and the pay increase will always lag the increase in workload by a large amount.
Let me give you another example. If an employee comes up with a cost-savings idea that will save the company $50,000 a year, will the boss reward the employee by paying him an extra $25,000 a year? If you were the boss, would you ever do such a dumb thing? I think like most bosses, you will give the employee a $100 lump sum reward and an 'employee of the month' award. You will probably pocket the rest of $49,900 for yourself even though you had no direct role in contributing to the cost-savings idea.
So, why can an employee get more money?
The only way is to provide a service that is of greater commercial value. A dishwasher earns $1000 a month. No matter how many dishes a dishwasher can wash, even if he can set the Guiness world record, he will not out-earn a lawyer or a doctor. He will not even be able to double his dishwasher salary. That is simply because the lawyer or doctor provides services of much higher commercial value.
Your maid, no matter how dedicated or productive, will always be earning Third-Word salary for two reasons - the level of her work is deemed as low-value, and also because bosses like you and I are used to paying her next to nothing in return for her many hours of work. If we were to pay her more, we will only do so most reluctantly and feel that we have been cheated by the universe.
I am not sure why your politicians don't tell the workers this basic fact about the working world. Maybe they don't want you to have a significant increase in salary. Or maybe they too are plain stupid.
That is why I detest politicians who tell young people that getting a degree is useless. A degree is probably the easiest way to pick up skills of high commercial value - legal services, computer programming, medical skills, accounting, business management, engineering expertise, etc etc. There is a direct correlation between level of education and earning power and accumulated wealth.
Look at your own elected politicians. How many of them do not have degrees? How many of them plan for their own kids to not go to university to get a degree?
Maybe your elected leaders want to keep you poor so that you are too frightened of them to vote them out.
Towkay
TRS Contributor