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Negative effect of increase in minimum wage
Raising minimum wage effects
Negative effects of raising the minimum wage on the economy
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In a published interview with Saiful Islam Khan, MD at Essential Clothing Ltd, it was heard that if the minimum wage increases to BDT 10 thousand then one-third of the factories might shut down because it would be tough for them to survive specially for the small and medium sized companies. On the other hand, it was also heard that the companies or factories can still absorb additional 20% increase of the minimum wage rate without causing the disruption in such factories. he article 123 of the Labour Act states that workers should receive their monthly wages by the end of 7th day. However, it is still seen that workers are not paid accordingly. This is the main reason for which the workers try to form a trade union in order to fight such exploitations. They start facing problems such as managing the payments for rental houses, payment for food and sending money to their home towns, as the payment gets …show more content…
Usually, they receive the payments during the middle and in some cases at the end of the month. Problem with overtime payments Although there have been drastic steps taken to improve the RMG worker’s situation just after such tragic events, but there still seems that the problem of forced overtime and denial in paying wages and overtime payment exists. Workers in many factories are still forced to work at night and do not receive the overtime earnings that they are entitled to. Through an article published by Human Rights Watch, it can be seen that major garment factories still fuels exploitation of labours. In order to maximize profit and reduce its costs, factory owners seem to cut on overtime payments for the workers. They force the workers to work extra in order to meet their orders, but in return only receive the regular payments and not the entitled overtime wages. Owners of such garments factory tend to be involved in politics which gives them considerable upper hand and acts as a barrier to mitigate workplace exploitations. The article also
But the process of getting these employees were satisfying to the managers but cruel to the employees themselves. In order for the managers, of the factories, to get their employees, the managers had to give to the head to the employee's family in what they called a earnest money, in which is an large amount of advanced money for the employee to work at their factories. To prove the loyalty of the employee by the family, the head of the family had to sign a contract saying that they accepted the earnest money and if there were any infringement the employee’s family had to pay more than the amount of the earnest money (Document E). In daily work life of a worker, the workers were roused from their bed at 4:05 A.M and sent to work at 6:15 A.M. during the workday the workers received 15 minutes for breakfast and lunch and a ten minute break during 3 P.M. Containing this life style was sometimes very tiring for the workers but also convenient for the working for it was a very healthy lifestyle for some (Document B). Some benefit of working at a factory were that whenever the workers wanted to be released it had to be in some excuse to be release such as getting married and family reasons. A 24 to 29 percentage of the workers getting release from their jobs were mostly due to illness or family reason and some were just release from their jobs in which is a benefit from working at these factories (Document D). Some other benefits of working in a factory was the experience according to a survey made in Japan in 1982, 90 percent of the women had said that their overall experience at working at a factory was very positive the other 10 percent said it was
Factory workers worked twelve to fifteen hours a day in hazardous condition. There were no protective rules for women and children and no insurances for job-related accidents or industrial illness. The workers were obliged to trade at company store
Timmerman suggests that “We share little with the people who make our clothes nowadays. We’re divided by oceans, politics, language, culture, and a complex web of economic relationships. It doesn’t affect our daily lives if they are overworked and underpaid as it did during the turn of the twentieth century,” thus demonstrating the inadequacy of outsourcing and the relationships between the corporation, factory workers, and the consumer (180). The dynamic between the corporations, factory workers, factory owners, and middle-men is complicated and tense due to the interactions, communication, and duties differentiating between each group. For the factory workers, they suffer working in hard conditions, though the workers are happy to have a job, they would rather endure the harsh stipulations for the means of production to make money to send to their families than to protest against their factory owners (Timmerman 7).
Linda Lim, a professor at the University of Michigan Business School, visited Vietnam and Indonesia in the summer of 2000 to obtain first-hand research on the impact of foreign-owned export factories (sweatshops) on the local economies. Lim found that in general, sweatshops pay above-average wages and conditions are no worse than the general alternatives: subsistence farming, domestic services, casual manual labor, prostitution, or unemployment. In the case of Vietnam in 1999, the minimum annual salary was 134 U.S. dollars while Nike workers in that country earned 670 U.S. dollars, the case is also the similar in Indonesia. Many times people in these countries are very surprised when they hear that American's boycott buying clothes that they make in the sweatshops. The simplest way to help many of these poor people that have to work in the sweatshops to support themselves and their families, would be to buy more products produced in the very sweatshops they detest.
Him having this experience made him bring up a point saying, that every business with minimum wage employees has to respond to this one way or another and i quote, “ Those who say raising the minimum wage will have no effect on employment are dreaming.” For example, if the minimum wage is raised to $15, for most businesses like Brodsky’s, that will be the entry level pay which will cause them to cut certain things out whether its employees, supplies, etc. to stay in business. Thus, making it obvious that raising the minimum wage will cost jobs one way or another. But on the other hand, why have a business if they can’t keep up with the demands of the employees? Why should a person pursue a business if they can’t pay their workers the money they deserve, considering the majority make a living off of the job. Do people ever think about just simply making changes to the business, whether it’s adding a new feature or upgrading the overall quality of it. For example, something like a restaurant can add in special day of the week where they serve a particular dish just on that day, which will bring in more profit because of supply and demand. Another example, for business more like a store, the owner or employer can expand their range product sold in the store; if they sell hats, shoes, and clothes, maybe then they could range out and add in book bags for the school time or even accessories. There is always alternatives to bringing in more profit when needed, instead of just cutting
In the article, “Let’s Make the Minimum Wage a Living Wage” by Ira Knight, he argues how the economy would benefit from a minimum wage increase and he uses a lot of studies to back up his claims. Janice Steele, however, argues that raising the minimum wage will hurt small business and job opportunity. She uses fear to influence workers into not increasing minimum wage by making large generalizations. The article “Let’s Make the Minimum Wage a Living Wage” by Ira Knight and the article by Janice Steele “Keep the Minimum Wage Where It Is” both had good points. However, Ira Knight makes a stronger argument.
Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour has been extensively debated over the last year or so. Minimum wage is the undermost wage allowed by law to be given to an employee for their services. Introduced in 1939, its purpose was to stabilize the economy, which was healing from the Great Depression. Most importantly, it was designed to protect the health and welling-being of employees. Currently, the Federal Government 's minimum is $7.25 per hour ($14,500 per year). The ones in favor of the increase are saying that it used to be a living wage; however, now it is not and it now needs to be line with changes to the cost of living. In addition, an increase in minimum wage can increase the productivity and decrease income inequality and poverty. On the other spectrum, the ones who are against the increase are saying that the increased labor cost will drive up unemployment, affect small businesses negatively, and cause other workers from different
“"Whoever Raises their Head Suffers the Most" | Workers' Rights in Bangladesh's Garment Factories.” Human Rights Watch, 18 Sept. 2017, www.hrw.org/report/2015/04/22/whoever-raises-their-head-suffers-most/workers-rights-bangladeshs-garment.
Americans do not realize the amount of clothing we wear on a daily basis is actually made in Cambodia, such as Adidas and even the Gap. The women that work for these sweatshops in Cambodia sew for 50 cents an hour, which is what allows stores in America, such as H&M to sell inexpensive clothing (Winn, 2015). The conditions these Cambodian workers face are a noisy, loud, and extremely hot environment where people are known for having huge fainting attacks. When workers were on strike a year ago, authorities actually shot multiple people just because they were trying to raise their pay. There is plenty of evidence of abuse captured through many interviews of workers from different factories, and is not just a rarity these places see often or hear of. Factories hire children, fire pregnant women because they are slow and use the bathroom to much, scream at regular workers if they use the toilet more than two times a day, scam hard working employees with not paying them their money they worked for and more, and workers are sent home and replaced if 2,000 shirts are not stitched in one day. Expectations are unrealistic and not suitable for employees to be working each day for more than ten
What is it like to live on minimum wage in America? It has never been fun, but it is
Most people during their lifetime have worked for a company in which they received minimum wage, I know I have and I am only 19 years of age. Well in 2013, 3.3 million people of the American workforce made the minimum wage, and of that 3.3 million people, nearly fifty-five percent were adults over twenty-five years old working full-time. With the current minimum wage at $7.25, there is no doubt that it is not sufficient to support a family with that amount. Although many people and many industries believe that the minimum wage should be raised to as much as $15 per hour, raising it to that level may be extreme. Minnesota raised its state minimum wage from $8 per hour to $9 per hour for companies making over $500,000 annually, effecting more
The minimum wage being too low has been a public issue in America for generations. Basically, the debate includes two different opinions. Firstly, people who want to raise the minimum wage, and second, people who would rather is stay the same. The overwhelming majority of liberals are on the side that favors a raise. Additionally, a somewhat smaller proportion of conservatives favor the change as well, but for different reasons. The liberal opinion on raising the minimum wage is based on the idea that putting more money in the people’s pockets, will stimulate the economy, and decrease poverty. The problem that conservatives and liberals alike have with this, is that a few direct consequences are proven to apply when raising wages. Some proposed consequences include unemployment, inflation, and unfairness to higher educated people. Another main point is that raising the minimum wage is thought to helps small business by increasing worker satisfaction. This issue of minimum wage has become increasingly popular and important in current times, as president Obama has proposed the idea of raising the minimum wage of contract workers to 10.10$ per hour (about a 30% increase from the current 7.25$ per hour minimum wage). A large number of people consider this wage hike unnecessary due to the fact that today’s value of minimum is higher than it has ever been since the 80’s, and because the wage hike comes at too high of a cost. All things considered, the issue of raising minimum wage is not a battle of political parties and their agendas, its really a debate between everyone.
Garment factories in the collapsed building are not H&M’s suppliers. But H&M is one of the largest buyers of garments from Bangladesh, owning 166 suppliers. After the disaster, global retailors, especially H&M, joined the safety plan as well as government pledged to raise wages for garment workers and
In the article, “Bangladeshi Garment Workers Fight Back”, North argues in favor of unions that protest against low wages and most importantly, poor working conditions in garment factories. The root of North’s discussion was the Rana Plaza collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which was one of the world’s deadliest industrial disasters ever to hit the garment industry. Later, North describes how poor working conditions negatively impacts worker’s lives because the cost of living were increasing, but wages were not and nor were working conditions improved. (North, 2013) Throughout the article, garment workers share their experiences about their workplace safety to North.
For the past three decades minimum wage has been seen to rise several times. Only helping some but more than anything harming most. So who are the ones feeling the effects? Certainly not the wealthy, it never is them, mainly it would be the working poor, unskilled and teenagers. Raising minimum wage would cripple the public even more than what it would actually help.