Over the years, neo-liberal policies have seen a steady erosion of the concept of minimum wage and there has been a steady reduction of the wage to increase profitability under the name of competitiveness. While salaries and remunerations for executives have reached record limits, workers find themselves facing pay cuts and even retrenchment. Accordingly, the income gap between those belonging to the low wage group and the rest of population is increasing. Even in 20 most industrialized countries, over 10% of population live below a poverty line (less than 50% of median income)

Though studies show that a higher minimum wage is associated with a low national level of poverty, in reality, minimum wage is far from covering even the basic living cost of workers. For instance, the monthly minimum wage in Bangladesh is 930 Taka (approx. US$15) for garment workers but the cost of food for o­ne person per month is a minimum of 1,000 Taka. In Korea, the minimum wage covers just 26.8% of the living cost of 3-member family.

Minimum wage is an issue mainly related to women workers. Many empirical studies show that workers earning the minimum wage or less than minimum wage are disproportionately women. For example, women make up 64% of all minimum wage workers while men make up the other 36% in Canada. A survey in Indonesia shows that 20.9% of male workers and 36.7% of female workers get wage less than minimum wage. So more women earn lower than the minimum wage than men.

Committee for Asian Women (CAW) has launched a joint action campaign in 9 countries in Asia to demand

‘Living Wage for a Decent Life’

In this joint action, workers in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, China, Hong Kong SAR, Korea, and Japan, are taking part to demand for their right to live a decent life and receive living wages. They will do so using a common slogan ‘Living Wage for Decent Life’ through various activities such as rallies, demonstrations, campaigns and workshops o­n May Day, 1st May 2005. CAW has initiated the campaign with the groups and is coordinating the action in the 9 countries.

CAW will be joining the activities in Bangkok o­n 1st May 2005 along with other labour groups. We will speak o­n behalf of all those women workers who are receiving wages below a decent living wage.

For further details, please contact: Jini Park (Programme Officer, CAW), 01-651-3318 (Mobile) and jini@cawinfo.org

Committee for Asian Women is a regional organization working o­n women workers’ issue in Asia for an alternative and desirable world where women participate to make it free from exploitation, from oppression, from marginalization, from want and hunger and from violence.

Check www.cawinfo.org for more information