Maarten van Klaveren discusses minimum wages and collective bargaining in Asia and Europe. He notes the polarity of debates on the establishment of a statutory minimum wage; on one hand around ‘social justice’ arguments for a minimum wage floor to reduce income inequality and poverty level wages, and on the other, the ‘economic imperative’ to ensure a minimum wage does not depress demand in certain labour markets.

Maarten van Klaveren is a senior researcher at the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced labour Studies (AIAS), University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Submitted by the Global Labour Column