Wage structure in the rubber estates in West Malaysia

Abstract

Economic literature is full of general theoretical discussions about the determination of wages, but there is, relatively speaking, a dismal shortage of detailed factual studies or discussions about wages in labour markets in the less developed economies. This study on the Wage Structure in the Rubber Estates in West Malaysia tries to fill a little part of this gap. The study is divided into two parts. The first deals with the findings of a sample survey conducted on about 500 workers. A detailed description of the workers' earnings structure, at one point of time, highlighted the importance of the union-management agreements as a proximate determinant. This was supported by other information on the low rate of mobility amongst the estate workers and the increasing levels of unemployment amongst the estate population. This finding raised questions on the role of unionisation over a period of time, as distinct from that at a point of time, on the industry's wage levels (and therefore on the industry's wage structure). It also raised questions' on the influence of the Union's wage policy on the industry's unemployment levels. These questions were examined in the second part of the study. The examination confirmed the importance of the Union in determining the wage levels (and therefore of the wage structure) in the estates, but it rejected the probability that the Union was chiefly responsible for the unemployment problem in the estates. A summing-up chapter has been left out because this would merely repeat materials included more appropriately elsewhere in the study. Almost all the materials discussed in Part I are original. These add on to the existing knowledge of Malaysia. Much of the time spent in the field and in the analysis was necessarily taken up by this section. The materials in Part II are partly original and partly secondary, but their relationship to the industry's wage and unemployment levels has been attempted for the first time in an academic study. The interpretation in Part I is fairly definitive, but that in Part II is not as definitive mainly because of incomplete information and because much more time and money than available would have been required to collect this information. In the past, the lack of published information and the almost insurmountable difficulties of accessibility to primary data (for a single unofficial investigator) have been amongst the main factors deterring research scholars from pursuing the type of questions raised for Part II. Although these difficulties still exist, it is considered preferable to discuss such problems with whatever limited information is available than to wait until more information can be obtained (if ever) for them to be examined more scientifically.