Several workers union went on a strike on the 2nd September 2016, demanding the government to raise the minimum wage of unskilled laborers at par with minimum wage paid to skilled laborers. Earlier the minimum wage for unskilled non-agricultural workers in non-urban areas was Rs.246, now it has been raised by the union government to Rs.350 and minimum wage for unskilled agricultural labor in non-urban areas has been raised from Rs.211 to Rs.300. All we can say is, it's a welcome decision in the right direction, but it's not enough.
Many different arguments were coming from various sections of the society. Some argued that you cannot treat skilled and unskilled labor from the same perspective. Some others argued that if minimum wages increase then commodity prices will also go high. It's needless to say that these arguments were coming from those who consider themselves part of the skilled or highly skilled labor pool with their concerns centered around their own income and expenditure. They are not people taking home, a couple of hundred rupees, after a back-breaking labor of 9-16 hours a day. Neither do they remain empty handed when the rest of the society enjoys a holiday break. So we don't need such so-called intellectuals arguing for their class superiority and self-centered economics to guide us on minimum wage.
This is a serious issue, which often gets swept under the mat or kept aside to be considered later on. If we have a genuine debate on it, the can of worms it will open up, will show that this wage disparity is a forced one, thrust upon the weaker sections of the society by all those who want a comfortable existence, exploiting unskilled laborers as slaves, whose labor can be bought with petty cash.
Two key arguments on minimum wage
Should difference in skilled, unskilled or highly skilled labor be a factor for deciding minimum wage?
Education remains central to deciding and distinguishing these labor forms, apart from that family engagement makes some adept in handling certain crafts. Primarily those who are deprived of both are those who take up unskilled or semiskilled labor to mete out their livelihood. We also find that their labor is being used by all others in the society. Now, even though the society needs their labor, it is unwilling to consider that they too are individuals who deserve better income and living conditions.
Although everyone is part of a value chain, where only productive hours of labor should matter, we have created privileged categories within labor. If a software is being used by some hundreds of people, are there not hundreds of people fed every day through farm labor? Tasks like road laying may not involve extraordinary decision-making, but it can be more cumbersome and draining because it involves hard physical labor, monotonous in nature and carried out in poor working conditions. The struggle involved is more than any skilled form of labor enacted in a relatively better working environment.
On one side we talk about alleviating poverty and uplifting people from underprivileged conditions, but on the other side, we are not willing to part with workers a decent wage, which can make them self-sufficient to look after their needs.
Excess profit of an enterprise is nothing but labor outcome of its workers
Say an automobile mechanic who is overloaded with work decides to hire a worker. He doubles his productivity with an additional laborer. From the profits earned, he pays a frugal amount as salary to the worker and retains the rest of the money for himself, which is nothing but a labor outcome of the newly hired laborer. Even after subtracting costs incurred to the service station of the automobile mechanic, which is now a micro business with one more worker in addition to himself, the excess profit that he retains is basically the strive of the laborer. If this is the case with a micro business unit, it's needless to say that the profits accrued by small, medium and large business are nothing but labor outcome of all its workers. Even a worker should know that the wage given to him is nothing but the outcome of his own labor, not some special grant given by his employer.
When both skilled and unskilled workers are indeed co-workers in production, the class disparity between them should cease to exist and disparity in minimum wages too. And minimum wage should not be based on whether the form of labor is skilled, unskilled or highly skilled. Basic needs of individuals and families are factors independent of their labor forms. How can we say a skilled laborer should get Rs.18000 as a minimum salary and Rs.10000 should be enough for an unskilled laborer? We are talking about minimum wages. It should be treated as a basic right of anyone who is engaged in any form of sustainable (productive) labor for stipulated hours.
Will commodity price go high if minimum wage for unskilled labor is increased?
Are those who are arguing that commodity price will go high, if minimum wage is raised, expecting that the burden of keeping prices low should rest on the shoulders of unskilled workers, who don't have enough money even to look after their own needs or on the heads of businesses, who are accumulating huge wealth in the name of profits? Who should part with their income to keep the prices low? Why is there no debate on capping salary and profits to bring down the prices? The subsequent argument people put forth is, it will affect the growth of businesses and can also discourage enterprises from hiring more people.
The result of increasing minimum wage could be the other way round also. When there is more disposable income with a laborer, his consumption rate will go high and it will give fresh impetus to the economy. The apparent loss what the elite are talking about is the profits they get to hold back. It legitimately belongs to the workers. They should be giving them back to the workers by capping their own salaries and profits. We have made excess profits look like a legitimate outcome of any business operation. It's rampant in our society today and we may see it in every business domain. For example, the profit a builder earns from the labor of scores of workers is several times higher than what he gives out as a collective wage to his workers. But propaganda mills of ill-informed industrial society presents unskilled workers' demand for minimum wage as an unsatiated greed.
If the society thinks that unskilled labor forms are tasks meant for lesser beings, perhaps we should make everyone skilled and disengage people from such tasks. But are we ready to do them ourselves? Since there is a definite need even for unskilled labor, let's treat such labor with equal dignity and remuneration that will allow the workers to lead a decent life with some surplus income to save.
All those who argue that rise in the minimum wage of unskilled labor will result in higher commodity prices should know that it will happen only if businesses are not willing to cut down their own profits in return. The onus is on the industry, which has been lobbying against raising the minimum wage. Enterprises which are engaging unskilled/skilled laborers with poor remuneration, but flaunting their corporate social responsibility for the sake of propaganda should know that charity begins at home. If they can distribute their excess profits to their own workers, the living conditions of millions of workers across the country will see a phenomenal rise.