Would you like a tax rise with those fries?
Okay, we're done with hurling marshmallows. Public Eye is now going to play hardball. We've had enough of the gibberish being spewed by big business to avoid paying Hong Kong's hard-pressed workers a decent wage.
The latest to talk nonsense is Duncan Abate of the Employers' Federation. He was on the radio this week recycling the same old junk that a minimum-wage law would actually hurt workers because bosses would cut staff. Are you saying, Mr Abate, that bosses would rather fire their workers than pay them a fair wage? Are you saying that bosses would only hire workers if they could pay them slave wages? Bosses fattened their own wallets while the economy boomed but opposed a minimum-wage law.
Now that we have a global financial tsunami, they say wage protection is untimely. The Employers' Federation shamelessly cited a study suggesting that even if we set the minimum wage at a paltry HK$4,500 a month, bosses would still fire 20,000 workers for every HK$100 above that. Think about this. Hong Kong's bosses would rather save HK$100 a month than reward the workers who slave to make them rich. The workers demanding wage protection include cleaners, security guards and the kids who work in fast-food restaurants. Go ahead, fire them. Who are you going to get to serve you your burger or clean your toilets? Robots? Bosses say instead of a minimum-wage law the government should guarantee workers a minimum income by propping up their slave wages with handouts.
That's right, employers want to use your tax dollars to subsidise them. But even if we use the public purse to dole out dollars to underpaid workers, where will the government get the extra money? Public Eye has the perfect idea: why not raise the taxes on big business?
Bars that bar should also be barred
