On Labour Laws: Western vs Asian
One of the first culture shocks that an Asian student studying in a Western country would probably face is that shops close at 5pm on normal trading days here. A natural reaction that then flows from this is a sense of cultural superiority and machoism. “Fcuking ‘ell, why these angmohs so weak one, close so early for what?”, since in their own home countries, shops usually open till 10pm.
After being rostered onto the worst ‘third watch’ (night) shifts for the whole 2 weeks of this extended Christmas shopping hours (I think I might have pissed my supervisor off or something), I am now fully in support of the West’s 8-hour work day labour laws.
One thing that many NIE Asian countries haven’t gotten a hang of yet is the family-work balance. Or for unmarried people, the social life-work balance. Do you realise how bad 5-10pm shifts screws up your social life here? During these two weeks, I might as well just stay in Target. These shifts are like shackles, restricting your movement to either staying at home for the whole day, or going to places close to your workplace so that you’d be able to race to work later. I am also being deprived of my favourite night TV shows now. The negative effects of graveyard shifts to people cannot be underestimated. And regardless of what Del’s gonna point out, the penalty rates of 1.2 x normal pay still doesn’t really make it any better for me. Give me my free time instead any day.
What is so macho about the Asian 13-hour work day? The way I see it, it only restricts all those poor ah pek’s sex lives, or denies young people more time with their friends/significant other/family/pets. It’s just so inhumane. Money isn’t everything. What if you just suddenly die tomorrow?
As you can probably guess, I’m struggling right now with my shifts. I’m sick of staring at the entrance of the store for 5-7 hours, and I have to do that for another 6 days straight before this nightmare called ‘Christmas Shopping’ ends. Pray for me guys.
Wow, Rajan was right. You really do need to take an economics class.
Comment by johnleemk — December 25, 2007 @ 6:48 pm
Bring it on john. After hibernating for a few months now, I relish in taking on misguided libertarians or semi-libertarians like Rajan and yourself
I’m gonna post a follow up to this article on the same topic soon. Keep an eye on that.
P.S: Done 1st lvl micro and macroeconomics before. Sucked at micro (hated it) but found macro fascinating.
Keynesian > neo-classical economic theory
Comment by sigma — December 26, 2007 @ 11:52 pm
Keynesian economics is often abused and interpreted in extreme ways; Keynes himself said he was deeply moved and in complete agreement with Friedrich Hayek’s Road to Serfdom, which was a complete repudiation of socialist policies (it turned out to be wrong from a historical standpoint, but the economic points it makes are still valid).
Comment by johnleemk — December 27, 2007 @ 1:52 am
My idea is that the 5-10 working hours is good for those who need the money. If you’re too poor to have a social life, might as well work hard for it.
Malaysia has got damn lousy labour law. And the parliament (gahmen & opposition) is arguing about SPR chief’s retirement age. Wonder when is the opposition ever going to grow up.
Did you know if you’re salary is above RM1500, you’re not entitled to OT allowances? Crap. I’d tell my boss to sod off if he refuse to pay me for working extra hours everyday.
Comment by iamyuanwu — January 1, 2008 @ 6:54 pm