Today the honorable Lim Kit Siang in his blog (http://blog.limkitsiang.com/) is proposing to move a motion on the issue of the MTUC nationwide picket on minimum wages. His motion reads in part "On Monday, 25th June 2007, Malaysian Trade Union Congress (MTUC) staged a 14-location nation-wide picketing by thousands of workers after discussions with the government on its campaign for a minimum wage of RM900 a month and cost of living (Cola) of RM300 for private sector employees came to a deadlock". I have been working for 30+ years now and this statement got me thinking back of the days when I started earning a salary
I was 12 years old, just finished my Form 1 (express class lah), and while waiting for the new school year to start, I worked in a coffee shop in the middle of KL - the current site of Kota Raya. There used to be a row of small shops selling textiles, shoes, bric-a-brac, etc.. Behind all that was a little kopi tiam operated by a Mr. Tham and his family (no relation to me). He was my mum's classmate and as my mum had to bring up my sister and I by herself, this was a good opportunity to earn some money to buy books and other school stuff to start a new school year. No wages were discussed - only that I would turn up for work at 8am and work until 6pm everyday during the school holidays. 
At the end of the holidays, I had learnt to carry up to 3 cups of coffee (on saucer) on one hand and I believe that Mr Tham gave my mum about $100 or $150 for my services. That sure came in useful for the school re-opening. 
I worked odd jobs during my secondary school days to bring some money home, but mainly to supplement my pocket money. I was given 20 sen a day for the whole of primary school and that was upped to $1 per day for secondary school. I bought a bus card at student's rate to get some savings. I still remember the bus card would be very dog eared by the end of the month. 20 sen in primary school could get you a bowl of laksa noodles and sometimes with see hum thrown in. I would pick up every single 1 sen I came across. A little old lady in Hot Spring New Village would accept 1 sen coinage for the candies she sold, which typically cost 10 sen to 20 sen. And I still collect 1 sen that I see lying on the ground. Got a whole container full of it now
Many people do not know this, but the current Giant Hypermarket was started by a local family named Teng. Old man Teng used to run a typical Teochew sundry shop behind Jalan Riong. They then expanded to Lucky Gardens in Bangsar and was revamped as Teng Mini Market Center (TMC). The 2 Teng brothers (Yew Heng and Yew Huat) allowed me to work part time in TMC over the weekends. As time went by, business was so good, they expanded TMC to it's current location (opposite Bangsar Shopping Center). The Teng brothers then decided to go one step further and started the first and (at that time) only hypermarket - Giant. The allowance I got from helping out on weekends were useful supplements to my pocket money. Too bad they have sold a significant (if not all) of their share to Dairy Farms of Hong Kong. I used to collect empty coke or any other aerated water bottles and turn them in for the deposit (5 sen per bottle) . I also spied for TMC on the neighbourhood mini markets to get pricing info.
Form 5, while I was waiting for my MCE (O levels or SPM today) results, I worked as a labourer in a building construction - earning a grand $5 per day. Imagine a scrawny 16 year old, who can hardly handle a wheelbarrow, moving around the construction site. Unloading cement bags was the worst experience. You always go home with cement dust clogging up both nostrils. The clothes I wore became really rough, clogged with building dust and debris and very difficult to wash. But $5 a day was nothing to sneeze at as a part time job in 1974, especially for someone with no experience, weighing probably 90 pounds or less.
Finally in 1977, I started on my first real employment - as a lab assistant in TAR college, working in the Electronics lab of S.O.T. and earning a princely $450 per month with $30 COLA and $20 special allowance. (if I remember correctly). But by the end of the first year, i was disillusioned. After working really hard, I got a $30 salary increment, because that was the scale used. No wonder civil servants do not have incentive to work hard. It is just not worth it. When I started in TAR college (a statutory body of sorts), I was the highest paid amongst my classmates. By the end of the first year, many of them had gotten big salary increments that far exceeded my total package. I resigned from TAR, joined Motorola Semiconductor for $475 per month. By working hard, in 9 months, I got promoted to Senior Technician. 6 months after that I was made Maintenance Supervisor. In 3.5 years that I was in Motorola, my salary moved from $475 to $900 when I left for HP in 1981. That is just the basic.
In 1981, I bought a house - freehold - 18 ft x 70 ft, double storey- in Taman Melawati for $43,500. With my meagre income combined with my mum's income, I could only get a loan of $28,200 from the banks at that time. The rest, I borrowed from friends (and learnt a very bitter lesson in life - you cannot depend on your relatives). Despite a basic of $750 (at that time), I was taking home $1600 to $1900 per month! How? Work my butt off on overtime lor. Within 6 months, I managed to pay off most of the loan that I had taken from friends to make the initial payment for the house. All this while, my only mode of transport was a trusty old Honda Cub which my mum bought for me when I started to work. Obviously I had no money left for parties, socializing and what have you.
HP offered me a position as a customer engineer for $1200 per month and 3 months later, I guess I must have impressed my manager enough that he gave me a whopping 25% pay increment to $1500. That was 25+ years ago in early 1982.
Today, without any special privileges (like discounts on buying property) or affirmative action plans, I have built up my asset base to 4 properties, with rental income from2 and expecting the third to come online early next year. Hard work never killed anyone. I even paid for my MBA (from Univ of Bath) by myself while doing it part-time. Cost me RM40K including fees, expenses and others.
But as I look back, I don't think my son will be able to buy a house today at today's price and income that I was able to do in my time. Who is to say? I have always given my grandparents some hard questions - why did not invest in property when they had a tailoring shop in PJ old town in the early 60s? They wasted all their monies on building bricks - the mahjong type. When my paternal grandparents passed away, they died with virtually nothing in their pockets. Theirs is another story to be told when I feel like it.
So is a minimum wage an important issue? Personally I think that it does not matter where you start off from as long as you are willing to work hard to get what you want - through legal means. I have always believed that the paper qualifications is nothing more than a determinator of where you start off in your working life. I started work with nothing more than an O levels bolstered by a Certificate in Engineering from TAR college. Along the way, I took up Diploma in Management from MIM and then my MBA from Univ of Bath. Once you get your foot in the company, how you proceed is totally up to you. Work hard and chances are the rewards will be better than the average Joe
Could my career have been better? Who knows? I guess I could have arrived faster if I had job hopped like many of my contemporaries. But as the sole breadwinner, that was a risk I was not willing to take. In this company, it is likely I'll work until retirement at 60 years, so I still have a long way to go.
Today, I am an Asia Pacific regional manager - cushy by some standards and yet bitching about the travels that I have to do. I also have a part time job as a public Mutual Unit Trust Agent at the level of an agency supervisor. So i have been actively trying to get a package from the company:)
I was 12 years old, just finished my Form 1 (express class lah), and while waiting for the new school year to start, I worked in a coffee shop in the middle of KL - the current site of Kota Raya. There used to be a row of small shops selling textiles, shoes, bric-a-brac, etc.. Behind all that was a little kopi tiam operated by a Mr. Tham and his family (no relation to me). He was my mum's classmate and as my mum had to bring up my sister and I by herself, this was a good opportunity to earn some money to buy books and other school stuff to start a new school year. No wages were discussed - only that I would turn up for work at 8am and work until 6pm everyday during the school holidays. At the end of the holidays, I had learnt to carry up to 3 cups of coffee (on saucer) on one hand and I believe that Mr Tham gave my mum about $100 or $150 for my services. That sure came in useful for the school re-opening. I worked odd jobs during my secondary school days to bring some money home, but mainly to supplement my pocket money. I was given 20 sen a day for the whole of primary school and that was upped to $1 per day for secondary school. I bought a bus card at student's rate to get some savings. I still remember the bus card would be very dog eared by the end of the month. 20 sen in primary school could get you a bowl of laksa noodles and sometimes with see hum thrown in. I would pick up every single 1 sen I came across. A little old lady in Hot Spring New Village would accept 1 sen coinage for the candies she sold, which typically cost 10 sen to 20 sen. And I still collect 1 sen that I see lying on the ground. Got a whole container full of it now Many people do not know this, but the current Giant Hypermarket was started by a local family named Teng. Old man Teng used to run a typical Teochew sundry shop behind Jalan Riong. They then expanded to Lucky Gardens in Bangsar and was revamped as Teng Mini Market Center (TMC). The 2 Teng brothers (Yew Heng and Yew Huat) allowed me to work part time in TMC over the weekends. As time went by, business was so good, they expanded TMC to it's current location (opposite Bangsar Shopping Center). The Teng brothers then decided to go one step further and started the first and (at that time) only hypermarket - Giant. The allowance I got from helping out on weekends were useful supplements to my pocket money. Too bad they have sold a significant (if not all) of their share to Dairy Farms of Hong Kong. I used to collect empty coke or any other aerated water bottles and turn them in for the deposit (5 sen per bottle) . I also spied for TMC on the neighbourhood mini markets to get pricing info. Form 5, while I was waiting for my MCE (O levels or SPM today) results, I worked as a labourer in a building construction - earning a grand $5 per day. Imagine a scrawny 16 year old, who can hardly handle a wheelbarrow, moving around the construction site. Unloading cement bags was the worst experience. You always go home with cement dust clogging up both nostrils. The clothes I wore became really rough, clogged with building dust and debris and very difficult to wash. But $5 a day was nothing to sneeze at as a part time job in 1974, especially for someone with no experience, weighing probably 90 pounds or less. Finally in 1977, I started on my first real employment - as a lab assistant in TAR college, working in the Electronics lab of S.O.T. and earning a princely $450 per month with $30 COLA and $20 special allowance. (if I remember correctly). But by the end of the first year, i was disillusioned. After working really hard, I got a $30 salary increment, because that was the scale used. No wonder civil servants do not have incentive to work hard. It is just not worth it. When I started in TAR college (a statutory body of sorts), I was the highest paid amongst my classmates. By the end of the first year, many of them had gotten big salary increments that far exceeded my total package. I resigned from TAR, joined Motorola Semiconductor for $475 per month. By working hard, in 9 months, I got promoted to Senior Technician. 6 months after that I was made Maintenance Supervisor. In 3.5 years that I was in Motorola, my salary moved from $475 to $900 when I left for HP in 1981. That is just the basic. In 1981, I bought a house - freehold - 18 ft x 70 ft, double storey- in Taman Melawati for $43,500. With my meagre income combined with my mum's income, I could only get a loan of $28,200 from the banks at that time. The rest, I borrowed from friends (and learnt a very bitter lesson in life - you cannot depend on your relatives). Despite a basic of $750 (at that time), I was taking home $1600 to $1900 per month! How? Work my butt off on overtime lor. Within 6 months, I managed to pay off most of the loan that I had taken from friends to make the initial payment for the house. All this while, my only mode of transport was a trusty old Honda Cub which my mum bought for me when I started to work. Obviously I had no money left for parties, socializing and what have you.HP offered me a position as a customer engineer for $1200 per month and 3 months later, I guess I must have impressed my manager enough that he gave me a whopping 25% pay increment to $1500. That was 25+ years ago in early 1982.
Today, without any special privileges (like discounts on buying property) or affirmative action plans, I have built up my asset base to 4 properties, with rental income from2 and expecting the third to come online early next year. Hard work never killed anyone. I even paid for my MBA (from Univ of Bath) by myself while doing it part-time. Cost me RM40K including fees, expenses and others.But as I look back, I don't think my son will be able to buy a house today at today's price and income that I was able to do in my time. Who is to say? I have always given my grandparents some hard questions - why did not invest in property when they had a tailoring shop in PJ old town in the early 60s? They wasted all their monies on building bricks - the mahjong type. When my paternal grandparents passed away, they died with virtually nothing in their pockets. Theirs is another story to be told when I feel like it.
So is a minimum wage an important issue? Personally I think that it does not matter where you start off from as long as you are willing to work hard to get what you want - through legal means. I have always believed that the paper qualifications is nothing more than a determinator of where you start off in your working life. I started work with nothing more than an O levels bolstered by a Certificate in Engineering from TAR college. Along the way, I took up Diploma in Management from MIM and then my MBA from Univ of Bath. Once you get your foot in the company, how you proceed is totally up to you. Work hard and chances are the rewards will be better than the average Joe
Could my career have been better? Who knows? I guess I could have arrived faster if I had job hopped like many of my contemporaries. But as the sole breadwinner, that was a risk I was not willing to take. In this company, it is likely I'll work until retirement at 60 years, so I still have a long way to go.
Today, I am an Asia Pacific regional manager - cushy by some standards and yet bitching about the travels that I have to do. I also have a part time job as a public Mutual Unit Trust Agent at the level of an agency supervisor. So i have been actively trying to get a package from the company:)
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