May Day 2008

The biggest holiday celebrated in the former Soviet Union, Labour day is now a globally celebrated holiday. Meant to celebrate the humble and lowly worker, the main driver of any business and nation's economy, it does, however, strike me as some what of a celebration of communism, which could be bad news for capitalism. I'm not saying that the workers of the world should not be recognized or celebrated, by all means, they should be! There are some marxist groups which could come to exploit this holiday as what happened in Malaysia recently.

As reported by Giam Say Khoon, from theSun newspaper, dated 2 May 2008, 200 people attended a Labour day march which was organized by the May One Committee, a coalition of union workers (which i thought was illegal in Malaysia) NGOs and some politicians. They made the following "demands" to the Party Rakyat ( I believe this is the name of Malaysia's coalition of opposition parties ):

* The enactment of a minimum wage policy and the abolishment of the minimum wage policy;
* For maids to be recognized under the Employment Act 1955 and International Labour Organisation Convention;
* the automatic establishment of a workers union;
* work places free of sexual and gender discrimination and the establishment of the anti-sexual harrasment act;
* protection be expanded to migrant workers in the Employment Act 1955;
* an end to talk on free trade agreements; ( Gasp! )
* that settlers not be evicted and the establishment of an affordable housing scheme;
* stop the privatisation of utilities and hospitals;
* abolish the Internal Security Act (ISA), Emergency Ordinance and Universities and University Colleges Act 1971;
* a government that is clean, transparent and free from corruption and cronyism; (what government isn't ?!?)
* the enactment of a freedom of information act.

I worry especially about the parts where they wanted to set a minimum wage, establish workers unions and abolish free trade! These seem like very communistic things to do and could only potentially hurt the economy of this country more. Being a free market idealist, and pro-globalist, the best way to help any economy is to open it up, rather than to shut itself out, and of course you need a government that can regulate it well enough too.