A DIFFERENT WORLD

Speaking about: Minimum and Living Wage

In this article we will talk about the differences between minimum and living wage, the projects and the different situations around the world (Asia, Europe and America). Finally we will talk about the effects of today’s economy in the application of minimum and living wage in a normal worker-salary and what effects it would have on his family.

As the law has established, the MINIMUM WAGE is the lowest salary that a worker can reach in his job. Most of times, this income doesn’t give the opportunity to live in a dignified way, so a worker can’t support him and his family’s costs. The most important example is the one in South-East Asia, where we can find some of the lowest salaries in the whole World. This situation is not well spread out and there are many differences between each country.

A worker must be able to support himself and is family. In this case we talk about LIVING WAGE, which let the worker live with dignity. As stated by the article 23 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of the Human Rights, the living wage must be a right for each person. Working in a dignified way is also the main purpose of ILO (International Labour Organization), which promotes a free, equal and safe way of working. As a guarantee of a minimum income, the living wage shouldn’t be a ceiling but a floor.

What means having a worthy life?

Let’s have a look at the situations around the World

ASIA: We start explaining the situation in Asia, which has the worst situation in the whole World, because the gap between minimum wage and living wage is the widest. Most of the World’s garments are made in Asia, and yet Asian workers who make them are not paid enough to live on it.

The Asian Floor Wage has been created to fight against this critical situation, it is a global coalition of trade unions; it has also calculated a living wage formula for Asia.

PPP$ (Purchasing Power Parity) is the way the Asian Floor Wage is calculated, which is a hypothetical world bank based on the consume of goods and services by people.

Bangladesh is the worst case in Asia with a percentage of 19% of minimum wage. The situation for workers is awful, they work too much and their earning is very low and so there are a lot of poor people. But the situation is very difficult in all of South-east Asia.

Here there is an image that represents the critical situation in South-east Asia.

In EUROPE the situation is not as critical as in Asia but we have differences between minimum and living wage too and there is a wide range of cases; for example in Italy isn’t established a minimum wage. We can find a different situation in Germany and Switzerland, where their governments want to introduce it. in Germany, Angela Merkel agrees in the introduction and Switzerland, if it would be introduced, would be one of the highest in World (3300 €).

Law has established a minimum wage in France (1400 €), Luxembourg (1900 €) and Great Britain with 1200 €; in Spain there is a minimum wage of 750 €.

The worst situation is surely in eastern Europe, where there are minimum wages very miserable, like in Moldova, 71 €, which is the lowest one in Europe. In Czech Republic has the highest minimum wage in East- Europe with a value of 390 €

In USA exists a minimum wage of 7,25 $ but the President Barack Obama want to take it at 10,1$ per hour; in Canada every province has his own minimum wage, but the national average is 11,08 C$ (Canadian Dollar)

WHAT COMPANIES THINK ABOUT WAGES

Today, more and more companies are employing workers which want a minimum income, so they accept every kind of condition, like 9 or 10 hours per day, and a very low wage in relation of the hours worked. So, in today’s economy, companies prefer to apply a minimum instead of a living wage because the labour cost re less. Another problem which is extended in the whole World is that companies are very reluctant in employing people with open-ended contracts, because the company’s work-necessities could change in time. This situation wouldn’t get the worker the opportunity to maintain his family.

Written by: Anzani Leonardo, Mattia Bolzanella, Davide Uboldi