Hi Vidyadhar, Stop deluding yourself. Wake up! Socialism is dead! Or at least dying. The reason why the word is still in the Constitution is because of your buddies from Calcutta who are holding Manmohanji at ransom. That's why he refers to his Capitalistic ideas as "Reforms" with a human face. There's no turning back for India. She is finally unshackled.
While I agree that the minimum wages need to be decided in consultation with the State, Unions and ILO, this thread started out with certain paranoid individuals claiming that the large corporations and MNC's, especially IT related, were "exploiting" the employees, which I disagree. Ironically, the real exploitation comes from the smaller industries of the socialist era. The minimum wages of the larger corporations that started to flourish only after the "reforms" of 1991, are way above the state prescribed minimum wages. In the case of myself, my "greedy capitalistic" MNC employer in Bangalore pays me at least 6 times the salary than that of a small industry 700kms away back home. In fact, all HR practices are neglected in the smaller companies. Bottom line: minimum wages need to be decided based on the standard of living and living expenses, ie, the purchasing power of the rupee. While there is a HUGE disparity of wages between Private MNC's and smaller or Public Companies, we are still in a transition phase that may last a decade or two. MNC salaries are creating a new benchmark, which are attracting more and more young people every year. It is also sending a clear message to the poor that education pays. Only those sensible and selfless poor people who will send their child to be educated rather than send them for child labour will benefit. Also, traditional "gold mine" fields like medicine are also taking a huge hit simply because of our dollar driven service industry where medicine plays a minuscule role apart from medical transcriptions. According to Aristonomics, I feel that while such fields will witness a downturn in the near future in terms of human resources, they will reappear with higher wages due to the future scarcity of qualified personnel in the field. Of course with the sheer number of working people in comparison with number of available jobs, we will always be "cheap". My worry is that with a higher literacy rate, will the unemployment rate also rise? Cheers, Aristo. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Goanet supports BMX, the alumni network of Britto's, St Mary's and Xavier's -- three prominent institutions in Mapusa, Goa. Events scheduled from Dec 16 to 21, 2006 For more details visit http://www.bmxgoa.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------
