Malaysia's "Me, too!" mentality

Murderously deforested Sarawak goes to their state polls soon, the world remains transfixed on the frenzy to cool down Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power plants, and the Malaysian government refuses to impose a moratorium on its plans for nuclear energy. Er, what’s the link?

Exploiting nuclear energy, like pillaging our forest, is a trouble-sure, self-destructive “me too” project. Others have done it, and so shall we. This is the line spun by our federal government on our “right” to deforest as much as fast as we please, most vehemently by Dr. Mahathir, while Sarawak Chief Minister Taib Mahmud has preferred to conspire in the shadows.

Malaysia holds the dishonourable distinction of being the world’s largest exporter of tropical logs, mostly from Sarawak. In 2006, we exported more than Indonesia, in second place, whose forest cover is 4 times ours, and number three Brazil, which has 23 times more forested area.

We could have said “not me” and done things differently: manage our forest resources responsibly and sustainably from the start. Instead, we pointed to countries that have had their glory days of deforestation and huffed that we will have ours too. Then we will get rich and declare ourselves developed.

The Najib administration has not convincingly demonstrated that future energy needs offer no alternatives to nuclear power, nor come up with a credible plan for reducing power usage and investing in cleaner and safer technologies.

One cannot help but notice the growing list of countries planning to go nuclear. The silence of our leaders conjures in our ears murmurings of ”you have, me too!” There’s Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Bangladesh – peers as well as subordinates in terms of national income level. Perhaps a greater itch is caused by the nuclear ambitions of neighbours Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Many are saying, even if the Japanese couldn’t avert crisis, what more us? While that has elements of truth, it misses the fundamental problems and systemic risks associated with nuclear energy.

One argument that will be trotted out is that nuclear energy is “safe”. The number of major crises is few, most prominently Three Mile Island in 1979, Chernobyl in 1986, now Fukushima.

But even if Japan escapes catastrophic meltdown and mass fatalities, there are solid grounds to reject nuclear power.

Anything related to nuclear fission is exceptional – exceptionally dangerous to humankind. We are dealing with radioactive material that can cause untold damage – and the worst hit will be communities who cannot afford to live safe distances from the power plants. Only two atomic bombs have ever been detonated on human settlement, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki: does that make nuclear weapons more palatable? The cold war doctrine of “mutually assured destruction” (splendidly acronym-ed MAD) held that nobody would be the first to use it because the enemy will retaliate and both sides will be annihilated. Yup, that worked – as long as there was an arms race.

A parallel logic applied to nuclear power would be: the potential disaster is so bad, no one will let it happen. Actually, everyone will hope that disaster happens to someone else first.

Power plants by force of necessity operate in isolation. They are located in remote, relatively low population density areas, and deal with complex physics and engineering way above our heads.

Wikileaks’ release of cables from the US embassy in Tokyo are now widely known. Taro Kono, a member of Japan’s Lower House, claimed that “Japanese electric companies are hiding the costs and safety problems associated with nuclear energy”, and have suppressed development of alternative energy sources.

Further compounding the problem, nuclear power contains a lethal mix of huge costs – to build, operate and dispose waste – and political protection.

Greg Palast, an investigative journalist and former regulatory agency researcher, reports that American power company Stone & Webster lied about its “Seismic Qualification” at its Shoreham plant in New York in 1988 – two years after Chernobyl! They were failing that requisite test, and it would have cost a financially calamitous one billion to change that result, so the company fraudulently passed itself. Two engineers blew the whistle on their employers. If not for them, and for the existence of regulatory oversight and intrepid journalism, we might have never found out.

The nuclear industry has grown in sophistication and extensively engages in extensive politicking, through lobby groups like the academically named Nuclear Energy Institute. Makes you wonder what may be shrouded from us about current hazards.

So what do we do?

Halt this hurried lurch toward nuclear power. Like rampant logging, don’t do it just because others have done it or are doing it.

Emulate the right things. Why don’t we look at advanced economies’ energy saving measures, efficient transport systems, excellent education institutions, democratic practices, high levels of critical and creative expression, and scream “me too!”?

Published in the Selangor Times, Issue 17, 25-27 March 2011.

Minimum Wage and Living Standards

This March in Parliament, the government will table legislation to institute a national minimum wage system.

In doing so, the BN government reverses over half a decade of its opposition, wily sloganeering and dithering on the matter. But this is more than a policy decision and political calculation.

To move from talking to doing minimum wage acknowledges of the plight of the working poor and the perils of perpetuating dependency on cheap labour. Minimum wage is a measure – among many, of course – that can go some distance toward making Malaysia a more just society and a more dynamic economy.

The magnitude of this intervention and its implications, and the contending interests of workers, employers, and society, demand a robust parliamentary powwow.

On 14^th February, Human Resources Minister Datuk Dr S Subramaniam delivered a closing address to a week-long Minimum Wage Lab, of which I attended a few sessions. He noted that the new law will establish a National Minimum Wage Council and mandate it to deliberate over a range of issues, most importantly, the minimum wage level, coverage, and time frames for review. Other critical issues, especially regarding the independence and authority of the wage-setting body – whether it is a council or commission – remain to be substantively debated.

We ought to be more concerned to do it well than fast. It concerns me that Subramaniam is already referring to high-income countries, where the vast majority (95 percent in some cases) earn above the minimum wage, as benchmarks of progress.

This says nothing about whether the minimum wage reflects a decent living standard. Like the poverty line, the lower we set the threshold, the fewer will fall under it – and the shinier we appear.

Moreover, minimum wage, unlike poverty, is legally enforceable. If all employers comply, then 100 percent of workers earn above the minimum wage – but this still does not tell us anything about worker welfare. Let us not fall into the trap of self-serving and misleading statistics.

We need to think hard about how we determine the wage floor, and how many floors Malaysia will have.

The Minister indicated that the government is leaning toward having one minimum wage level for the country, perhaps with differentials for Sabah and Sarawak.

In other words, all of Peninsular Malaysia will adhere to the same minimum wage rate. Selangorians and KLites should take a keener interest here; in the effort to compromise at a minimum wage satisfactory to all, the level may be too low to sustain the relatively higher cost of living or to compel firms to shift towards higher skill, higher wage production.

The reasons behind a single minimum wage, instead of variations across region or state, are empirical and practical.

Cost of living, or the amount workers need to spend to sustain a living, does not always correspond with productivity, which reflects the capacity of firms to pay their workers. Sabah usually emerges as a case in point: cost of living is high, but productivity is low. Hence, to apply the same minimum wage to all states risks jeopardizing those with higher proportions of firms that cannot afford to pay.

Conditions in Sabah and Sarawak are undoubtedly different and warrant separate consideration, as we have been doing for decades in setting three poverty lines, one each for the East Malaysian states and one for the Peninsula. But we should not apply that three-way breakdown just because that’s the way it’s been done.

Of course, the more geographic or economic categories we account for, the more difficult, costly and time-consuming it gets to gather and analyze data. The practical constraints are significant. To analyze wages and propose minimum wages for all thirteen states could certainly overcomplicate matters and overstretch resources, but surely we can commit ourselves to determine and periodically revise two or three levels within Peninsular Malaysia.

Beyond the question of varying minimum wage levels, we should also take an interest from a more proactive standpoint, and ask what ways a relatively advanced state like Selangor can take the lead in promoting decent jobs, not just minimal standards.

Could we emulate the international “living wage” movement, which enforces wage requirements in government procurement, contracting and licensing? Since these are controlled and can be leveraged by the government, the living wage floor can be set above minimum wage.

I don’t see why not. It’s simple, legitimate and progressive.

We would merely enhance some rules of engagement – in society’s interest – for companies that make money by supplying to government, or by acquiring a license to operate.

There’s a lot of work to be done, and a lot more that can be done, to alleviate working poverty and promote decent pay.

This article was previously published in the Selangor Times, Issue 13, 25-27 February 2011.