Was
looking at SMRT’s 10-year annual financial reports in brief and the recent
spate of intimidation and finger-pointing in response to Prof Lim Chong Yah’s
urge for a revamp of wages for our workers to address the income inequality
issue, came into mind.
A series
of intimidation followed efficiently from our Cabinet that wage increase without
corresponding productivity increase will result in inflationary pressure on
business costs and consequently scaring away businesses away from Singapore
More cold
water is thrown in by MP Teo Ser Luck [Here].
He demands increase in revenues for business on top of the productivity
increase as the pre-requisites for any wage increase. PM Lee Hsien Loong wrapped
it all up as a Labour Day gift for all workers simply: Singaporeans, Stop!
dreaming of higher wages.
Naturally,
business owners and GDP-reliant government would cry out loud for increase
productivity. But who could guarantee our workers, in black and white, that increased
productivity would warrant a pay increase? Productivity increase contributes
directly to revenue increase in the form of cost savings. Business owners are
business owners afterall, coveting for profits. Increased revenues would not
necessary translate into wage increase or proportionate wage increase. That is
the reality which our Cabinet and MPs choose to overlook.
Take a
look at SMRT’s net profits over a decade (Fig. 1). Net profits have grown 183%
over the ten years with year to year increase in most years. Despite incurring
a loss in FY 2011 and gaining a small increase in FY 2010, SMRT still bagged in
over $160 million in the last three consecutive years.
(Fig. 1)
(Staff
and related costs include directors’ fees and remunerations)
Fig. 2
Assuming
Teo Ser Luck’s logic that growing revenues and increase productivity will bring
about higher wages and using SMRT as an illustration, SMRT workers should have
seen their wages increase by the same proportion, or at least, by a similar
proportion. Over the course of ten years, SMRT’s staff and related costs increased
by 70% in total (Fig. 2), inclusive of fees and remunerations of the directors,
as well as the CEO’s. Much of this 70% is due to the huge increase in staff
cost in FY2003 alone.
Looking at
the average percentage increase per staff, subsequent years see cost per staff growth
kept below 10% and in some years, an actual wage drop, meaning the average wage
for workers did not see wages growing above 10% and were subject to wage cut in
some years. This cost per staff will not be an accurate reflection of those
staff below the ranks of directors and CEO, as any increase of this latter group
of staff will distort the average wage of staff by a large extent. In cases where
increment is only allotted to directors and CEO, overall staff costs will still
increase.
If we
compare the percentage increase in SMRT’s net profits year-to-year with that of
the staff and related costs, wages seem to fall behind the net profit growth. FY
2007, FY 2008 and FY2009 saw a 31.08%, 10.38% and 8.5% increase in net profit respectively
but subsequent FY2008, FY2009 and FY2010, staff and related costs per staff fell between
2.08% to 4.25%. FY 2005 alone saw a substantial 40.35% increase in net profits
but it was translated into only a 2.3% increase in staff costs per staff in FY2006.
Although
the figures shown here is a very raw form of illustration, it serves to highlight
the fact that our workers generally are at a losing end where wage increase is
subject totally to the mercy of business owners or top executives. And there is
no organization or a strong and independent trade union, much less the ruling
party, to literally fight for the welfare of our workers who were shortchanged in
the first place.
