Malaysian Trade Union Congress, Sarawak chairman, Andrew Lo has been on the economic beat his entire career. Since the early 1980s, the union leader has been working in the banking sector, and has accumulated a wealth of economic understanding. A strong believer in better wealth distribution for the masses, Lo, nonetheless, is pragmatic. Here, he speaks to StarMetro on being brought up by a single mother, his late academic progress and how minimum wage can be implemented in the country.
Question: As always, we start off with something simple. Can you begin by telling us about your growing up experience?
Lo: Wants to see a better wealth distribution for the masses in Sarawak.Answer: I come from a very a typical family of the 1960s, we were poor. My family lived in a wooden house with ‘atap’ roofs on Nanas Road West. I was the youngest among three brothers and four sisters.
We were brought up by a single mother, who had to endure much hardship. She worked as a maid and as a seamstress. Although it wasn’t easy growing up poor, I’m very happy to recall my childhood. I think being poor at a young age defines my family. We learnt that nothing comes easy.
Q: And what was your education background?
A: I attended primary school at SRK Combined, then proceeded to SMK Green Road. I finished Form Six in 1980. Coming from the background I had, it was always at the back of my mind that I had to work immediately after school to support the family. However, I was the youngest, and in that sense, I was much more spoilt than the rest of my siblings.
Anyway, after graduation, I started work at the F&N factory along Penrissen Road. It was my first job and I was there for three months and left for a clerk’s job at Standard Chartered Bank, where I worked until last year.
Q: That’s a long career at the bank. What were your responsibilities?
A: I started out as a “machine” worker, but not the type of factory machine. They were essentially really primitive computers, like a punch card system. Throughout the years, I’ve been lucky to have worked at all branches of the bank.
Q: Can you tell us about your present family life?
A: I’ve two children, one is a stepson from my wife’s first marriage. My wife works for Malaysia Airlines. She was my high school sweetheart, so to speak, but she ran away with someone else at first. [Laughs]. Anyway, we married 11 years ago. Our eldest is studying culinary arts in Perth, Australia. He likes Italian and Japanese food. I suppose it’s the TV programmes he’s been watching. He tells us he’s not coming back here! [Laughs] There you go, brain drain within my own family!
Q: Before we move on, more on your education. Did you attend university?
A: No, I never had the chance. Also, my results at secondary school were not so good. I have no regrets though. I never blamed my education on anyone. In the mid-90s, I took up a distance-learning course, and graduated with a Bachelor of Law. It was difficult to progress career wise without a higher qualification.
Q: When did you become active with union work?
A: Almost right from the start I was contributing to grass-root activities. I suppose it had something to do with my family background, seeing the hardship that came with low wages and all.
Q: Were you based in Kuching throughout your career?
A: Yes always, except for two years when I was posted to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur as part of the bank’s team to learn computer skills. That experience taught me that to be successful, you’ve got to keep looking ahead.
Q: It’s a good point that you’ve brought up, because my next questions is: Do you feel Sarawakians are too complacent?
A: Oh yes, our people don’t like to venture into new things, into the unknown. This is where I feel my union background has really shaped my point of view. One problem I see among union members is that people here have a tendency of not wanting to move. Sarawakians come up with all sorts of excuses.
But if the state is to progress, we must explore new frontiers. We need a broader outlook, professionally and socially. Why so narrow minded? In Singapore, people are from everywhere globally.
Q: Why do you think that is?
A: One of the reason may be due to Sarawak’s unique immigration laws. Our people here are very under-exposed to foreigners. Competition makes us better, and the more competition we have, the more our people will find that they need to upgrade themselves.
Q: But some would say that Sarawakians are not ready for more progressive immigration laws?
A: Yes and no. I’m not suggesting for our borders to be opened up immediately but we have to do it eventually, so why not start now in stages in a regulated way? Let me make it clear here too, I’m not just talking about human capita, but also in terms of businesses too.
Q: What are your feelings on what’s been announced on the New Economic Model (NEM)?
A: So far I like what I’m hearing, but my worry is that it will go down the same route as any good policy in Malaysia. Malaysia is good at defining policies, but not implementing and enforcement. Are we good at thinking big? Oh yes. Making dreams a reality? I’ll leave that to your readers to decide.
It feels like we are a nation full of leaders, but where are our managers? In that sense, the announcements on NEM so far is a validation of what unions have been saying for decades.
Our income disparity has grown too wide during the New Economic Policy. However, and keep in mind that although I’m not a bumiputra, I strongly agree that you cannot have a situation where majority races are without a larger slice of the country’s economic wealth.
Affirmative action is right, it’s done in every country. An accurate criticism of the NEP would be that, within the bumiputra community, a “superclass” was created. Furthermore, the country’s economic progress in those decades created a subsidy culture. It’s at a point now where our society cannot accept a non-subsidised way of life.
Think about it carefully: Why should our tax money go towards subsiding sugar that is being consumed by people who go to Starbucks? Do you know how much tax money has been spent on their expensive cups of coffee? A subsidy culture is far from being an efficient way of redistributing wealth.
Q: What is your feelings regarding the plan’s objectives of achieving a high-income society?
A: Again, policy wise, it’s great, but I’ve not seen their action map. It’s clear that low-productivity can’t lead to high-income. So the question is, how are we going to raise productivity?
I’ll give you two examples to elaborate. My grandfather was a rubber tapper and we still have his rubber tapping knife. It’s a very modest instrument to eke out a living. And this is the sad part: Rubber tappers now still use the same kind of knife. More innovation is needed. No matter how hard you work, if your ways and means are not modern, you can’t enter the high income segment.
Secondly, look at the building industry, this is where low wages are very clearly inhibiting innovation that’s already taken place in other countries like Singapore. Our building industry is over-reliant on cheap foreign labour.
Why aren’t Sarawakian builders using pre-fabricated techniques for example? It’s because, in Sarawak, it’s still cheaper to use cheap foreign labour. It’s simple economics. When wages are low, it stifles productivity.
Q: Looking at the calls for minimum wage, do you agree with the government’s proposal that wages be staggered according to different job sectors?
A: Firstly, the union maintains that minimum wage is crucial, but wage staggering should be according to regions.
We have minimum wage laws for security guards and also within the hotel sector that was set up in 1967. Don’t laugh, the figure for the hotel sector has never increased since then, it’s still RM6 per-day. Also, we have a minimum wage for Indonesian maids, it’s RM450 a month, and the irony is that there is no minimum wage for local maids. Sure, minimum wage is not an easy issue, but it’s very important that we get the mechanism right.
Q: Okay, but wouldn’t a regional minimum wage system accelerate the rural-urban migration problem? And since workers in peninsula would surely get higher wages, would that not lead to greater brain drain from Sarawak?
A: Regional wages are implemented in developed countries like England. The wage scale in London is far higher than in northern England. What we can do is for the wage scale to be divided according to broad regions.
You see, minimum wages will have great ramifications upwards on the job ladder, which means that higher income jobs will also get a boost. That, I sincerely believe, will actually put a stop to brain drain. Let’s not forget that there is already a great number of Sarawakians working elsewhere.
Q: It’s been commonly said that inflation has not been in-line with wages. Can you comment on that?
A: When I started working, after just five years, I could buy a house - a double-storey, terrace house at RM50,000. Mind you, I was only a clerk then. Now, a clerk’s pay at the bank is about RM1,300 monthly. To buy the same type of house I bought 25 years ago is roughly RM300,000. That is a seven fold inflation of house prices when salaries have only gone up three times.
Q: Your perspective is different compared to most people. Do you find it frustrating to present your views?
A: The problem with policy makers, like the rest of society, is that they don’t want to come out of their comfort zone. As a unionist, I’ve always maintained that to develop the economy, the government must allow unions to become stronger. You can see that in-effect among the highest GDP per-capita countries in Scandinavia.
Don’t deny that with unions, with higher income, innovation grows. You give a rubber tapper a simple tool, and it doesn’t matter if he or she runs around and taps as hard as possible, productivity will remain low. It’s a two-way street, employers will continue to hire cheap manual labour in place of modern technologies.