Jason Wong
Malaysia Muda joined the #Bantah1050 minimum wage rally at Parliament on Oct 17 with a small contingent of 10 students. Even though there were only a few of us, the workers there were very happy that we turned out to support.
I personally consider the student contingent on that day to be historically significant. Students organised the TangkapMO1 protests in 2015, and there were no doubt thousands of students involved in the Bersih protests. But a student contingent has not been seen at a political rally in Malaysia since at least the Reformasi protests of 1999, if not longer.
Many angry keyboard warriors criticised the workers protesting that day, insisting that they should starve for the glory of the economy. But they likewise criticised the students attending, claiming the minimum wage was somehow “not our business”, that we should stay in class and that we have no right to comment on political matters until we graduate. They are wrong. Whether we realise it or not, the minimum wage is a student issue on several important levels.
1. Students and Fresh Graduates Have Low Wages
If you work while you study, take an internship as part of your course, or are taking temporary work after graduating before you can find a job that actually uses your degree, you are probably being paid at or just above the minimum wage.
To put things in perspective, a large proportion of interns in the workforce here are not paid at all, and even the ones that are get paid sub-RM1000/month, which is the current minimum wage. Pakatan’s proposal for RM1050/month comes into effect next January, which is about what most entry-level service jobs like waiters and cashiers get, if they work 6 days a week full-time.
If you somehow have enough energy left over to work overtime (12 hours a day) you might get RM1250/month. And even if you manage to find professional work as a fresh graduate, very few positions will offer more than RM2500/month at start, even as the recently released Bank Negara report recommends a living wage of RM2700/month for Kuala Lumpur.
In short, anybody that is working a job that doesn’t require a degree would benefit directly from our demand of RM1800/month. Anybody working an entry level job of any sort would almost certainly benefit directly if the Bank Negara recommendation of RM2700/month was followed. Fighting for a better wage will help that vast majority of students and graduates save up earlier and support their families.
2. Most Students Come from B40 Backgrounds
A surprisingly large proportion of students in local universities come from B40 (bottom 40% income) backgrounds. Even for Universiti Malaya just over half of the students come from B40 backgrounds. This is thanks in part to the PTPTN scheme, and because students from wealthier families often choose to study overseas.
These loans need to be paid back eventually. While the government has proposed putting in a wage threshold, such that people earning under a certain amount don’t have to start paying back their loans, this is still just a proposal. A good wage will shave years off the PTPTN repayments of thousands of students.
On top of that, the preponderance of B40 students means that a higher minimum wage will almost certainly benefit somebody in their immediate family, either a parent or an older sibling, who is funding that student’s education. Because many of these students come from small towns and from interstate, a higher wage raises the disposable income of less developed regions of Malaysia.
The minimum wage issue is therefore also an issue of access to education. We fight for affordable or free education, and at the same time we fight for higher wages so that all the other expenses a student needs to deal with: food, rent, bills, travel and recreation, are within their purchasing power.
3. The Fight for Wages is the Fight for Unions
Another common criticism is: “what fools these workers and students are! Thinking that their opinions matter to our glorious Tun!” And they are correct. Anybody who is serious about winning a living wage in Malaysia knows that as long as business makes enough noise, the Harapan government will rule for the bosses and keep the wage down.
In times of economic stress, governments are always forced to choose between two strategies. Either, to let the rich profit at any cost, so that the economy grows, even if workers and the poor must starve. Or, to distribute wealth to the poor, so that they can consume, maintain their standard of living, grow the consumer base and access education to pave the way for economic recovery.
If the government refuses to listen to peaceful protest, then the next option for workers to defend their wages and jobs is to go on strike. That requires a strong union. And that strong union is built when workers are offered a good demand to fight for and that society supports their struggle. This is why we are demanding RM1800/month and why we are trying to spread the word to every section of society including students. We can rebuild our union movement through this wage campaign.
Strong, fighting unions are the only guarantee that we will win higher wages. They are the only guarantee that we can defend those wages after they are won from the government. They are the only guarantee that individual workplaces can band together to fight employers that are breaking the minimum wage or exploiting loopholes.
In the same way, we want to rebuild student unions so that students have control over how our campuses are run. Only a fighting student union can make sure that the Najib-era cuts to universities are reversed, that the Pakatan government moves towards free education for all, that autonomy and the abolition of AUKU are upheld, and the money that our campuses receive is spent on staff and students instead of overpaid top bureaucrats.
4. We Have a Responsibility to Society
We look to the example of the Universiti Malaya Student Union in the 1960s, which frequently mobilised not just on student issues but also on off-campus issues like unpaid wages to farmers and in defence of urban settlers. Their slogan mahasiswa suara rakyat (students are the voice of the people) outlined their understanding that students had to use their position and skills to benefit society.
Even though not all UM students studied history or politics, because they understood their responsibility to society, the union kept everyone up to date on the politics of the day. When the union called the students out in support of workers and the poor, they all walked off class together to send a clear message to the government.
Student unions around the world continue to be politically active today. They are often a feared and respected voice in society fighting for those who are unable to speak out for themselves. When large groups of students take a break from their study to speak out on an issue, people listen.
The minimum wage campaign is the first working class mobilisation since the May 9 election. Pakatan Harapan and the business class are watching closely, and they will base the labour policy of the next 4 years on how well workers are able to organise and fight.
At this very moment the government is juggling several new proposed taxes in its 2019 Budget. How hard workers and students hit will determine whether these taxes are for us the working poor, or for the wealthy and their corporations who can afford to pay.
5. We Need to Redefine the Purpose of Universities
These days we are made to believe that we go to university for our own benefit, to get better wages and jobs after we graduate. We are made to think that we are the university’s customers, that the education we receive is the product. But the reality is that our future employers are the university’s customers, the university is a service provider, and we students are the product.
A fresh graduate will probably produce 10 or 20 times as much as a less-skilled worker in terms of value for their boss, but they are only paid 3 or 4 times as much. The rest of that productivity goes straight into the bosses’ pocket. Then they make us fight each other over graduate positions, so they can pay us even less.
The bosses have managed to fool everyone into thinking about universities as companies and not as a public service. There isn’t another industry on earth where the product is expected to pay for its own processing! And yet we are hit with fee hike after fee hike, while the government taxes big business less and keeps cutting funding to our universities.
This is why the student’s fight and the worker’s fight are one and the same. Students need a union to make sure that education is well-funded and government money is spent wisely and fairly. Workers need a union to make sure that they are paid the value of their work. Both students and workers unions need to take strike action when their members are in danger. We must do everything in our power to help each other rebuild our unions.
Malaysia Muda is working together with the #Bantah1050 coalition on the next steps in the campaign. We will be reaching out to factory and farm workers around the country and planning further mobilisations. We are considering campus mobilisations as well.
We need more students to be involved for this campaign to grow. We need people who can make the arguments, organise their classmates, call them out to support actions. If you can help us, get involved with Malaysia Muda and send us a message!