Union calls for policy review on foreign workers

by Murib Morpi. Posted on October 11, 2011, Tuesday

KOTA KINABALU: Malaysia need to review its policy on foreign workers and set a

clear recruitment guideline to limit the number of imported workers to be allowed for every sector.

Asean Service Employees Trade Union Council (ASETUC) when suggesting this yesterday said, limiting the number of foreign workers is important to allow more opportunities for the locals to take up jobs in the various sectors currently dependent on immigrants.

Its general secretary Mohamed Shafie BP Mammal said, this will become a vital start towards promoting a decent work environment for workers in the country.

“We are not against foreign workers, but there must be a limit. Initially, foreign workers were brought in for the plantation and construction sectors, but today, we see that they are in all fields, competing with the locals,” he said to reporters at the ASETUC Malaysia National Advocacy Workshop held at Tang Dynasty Park Hotel here.

Mohd Shafie said, ASETUC Malaysia recognises that the influx of immigrant workers is a major issue in Sabah and in the country.

He also acknowleged that foreign workers were being exploited for minimal salary by their Malaysian employers, and this has been one of the major obstacles against the effort to introduce minimal wages for many sectors in the country.

“We want the government to be very serious in this. They have to look at it based on the actual needs and requirements of the industry. By actual needs I mean, what sector which really requires foreign workers and should be allowed to employ immigrants, and how many.

“We need to define what we mean by shortage of workers, because in my opinion Malaysia has more than enough readily available workers. It just that the ‘pulling factor’ is not there to attract the locals… the wages are too low, the allowances are too low, and they (employer) do not seem to be interested in hiring Malaysians.

“These are the factors causing Malaysians to shy away from certain sectors, but if the treatment is good, the benefits are there, I think the locals would grab the (job) opportunities available,” he said, stressing that the limitless availability of foreign workers ready to be employed with such low salaries has been the major obstacle to get the local industry to adopt a proper minimum wage limit.

Mohamed Shafie suggested that a special action committee to be set up specifically for reviewing the approval given to employers to hire foreigners and to come up with a fairer formula to all parties.

He added, the new system should also emphasise on allowing the authorities to effectively keep track and control the number of foreign workers being hired in the different sectors and ensure that locals are given the priority to fill the vacancies available.

He stressed that until today the government cannot even state the actual number of immigrant workers hired, let alone having a proper means of limiting their number in the industries.

“Because of this situation, foreign workers continue to migrate in big numbers into Malaysia, and there is no control. We don’t even know how many of them are here, the figure varies and keep changing depending on who announces it. So we need to study the requests from the employers, whether they are really relevant. We cannot simply approve and let them in, there must be a quota for all the industrues and for every sector. And we need to know the exact figure.

“In addition, we cannot deny the rights of the locals. They should be the ones to decide, if they say they don’t want any more then we should not let more to come in… These jobs that are given to foreigners can actually be done by the locals but the employers do not see this.

“The locals are not appreciated as competent workers, we label them as lazy and choosy. This has to change. The Prime Minister is talking about transformation and this element also has to be transformed,” he said.

This was the first advocacy workshop organised by ASETUC in Sabah, they had previously organised two similar events in the peninsular to promote discussions and collaborations between the employee unions, the employers and the government in addressing common issues.

Over 40 union members from Sabah and Sarawak attended the two-day workshop, which is also aimed at consolidating the responses of trade unions from these regions and to incorporate them into the strategic plan of Malaysia’s trade unions.

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