99 Speed Mart celebrates growth amid labour criticism; excellent business model or plain exploitation?

 

ANY MALAYSIAN can identify the green and orange sign of a 99 Speed Mart, which represents the epitome of convenience and affordability.

So successful is the chain of convenience stores that 99 Speed Mart recently reported a RM10 bil revenue, a significant milestone for the company.

The founder, Lee Thiam Wah, certainly has a good deal to celebrate but netizens, however, are not sharing in his joy. Take for example, a recent post by netizen @sinach_z, sarcastically pointing out the fact that the workers at 99 Speed Mart might be underpaid. 

Netizens were divided over the post and raging debate at the comment section was, safe to say, very informative.

“No one makes billions without exploiting something or someone,” said a cynical @adriansasha while @Waffle_HL subscribes to the concept of the free market.

“Willing worker willing employer. Business sustainability doesn’t care about your virtue signalling or socialist ideas,” said @Waffle_HL.

Then there was a maths wizard who decided to turn the comment section into a maths class:

Also, @Ayin__mh claims that the top 99 Speed Mart outlet which registers sales of over RM400,000 doesn’t pay the employees well. Apparently the workers there received Burger King vouchers only. 

But the founder of 99 Speed Mart has his supporters too. @wtstethoscope82 said that the weight is on the people who suggest that the company is abusing its workers to prove their claim. Otherwise, they are just being jealous of other people’s success.

On the other hand, @MrDannyArcher remarked that it was hell working at the company. “Imagine putting price tags on every single one of the items in the store and changing them every day due to price changes. Total madness. But hey, their stock is doing really good. Can’t complain,” he said.

Then there was @jaw1292464 who believed that the unity, or rather, disunity of the workers is what determines their wages.

“The worker’s wage is determined by how little their peers are willing to get paid. Not the revenue of the company. The biggest reason Malaysia wage is so stagnant is because Malaysian don’t have self respect and are willing to get paid less doing more,” he said.

On our part, we would like to point out that there is a huge difference between revenue and profit. The differences between these two terms is obvious for those who have a background in finance.

Note that revenue is the total amount of sales done, before deducting operating expenses such as rental, workers’ salary, and others. The profit, after tax deduction, should be far less than the RM10 bil revenue reported. Hope that helps. —Focus Malaysia