Govt to act against employers who violate workers’ rights

By G. Sharmila

Paul Low Seng Kuan

The government will take action beginning next year against employers who violate workers’ rights, particularly that of migrant workers, said Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Paul Low today.

“What’s going to come up in January is this: we have to make the policy of employment of migrant labour the responsibility of the employers, not the government. What we’re going to do early next year, is for those who want migrant labour, the employer will be responsible,” he told the audience at the launch of the latest World Bank Malaysia Economic Monitor report.

“We’re going to ask them (employers) to sign a strict liability provision. We need to do that because we need to balance the migrant labour wage to be higher so that the total remuneration package is at least 30% higher than the local wage. And to do that we have to make sure that the employers comply with the minimum wage conditions,” he said.

“For example, for manufacturing we have to impose a higher levy because we want to encourage them to automate and to reduce labour. So we have different levies for different sectors. They have to pay minimum wages and to comply with human rights requirements,” he said.

He said that the government also may want to set up a repatriation fund for foreign workers, because it has found that when the time comes for repatriation, the foreign workers have no money.

Commenting on illegal foreign workers in the country, Low said that the reason there are so many illegal workers is because many of them overstay. “They leave their employer and when they go to another employer, they overstay and the employer does not renew their documents.

“So we have to make it punitive that employers cannot employ an illegal worker. We are likely to make an amendment to the law to make it punitive,” he said.

Speaking to the media after the event, Low said that the strict liability condition agreement will only be imposed on employers in industries such as manufacturing and construction and that domestic helpers are exempted.

He added that the new regulation will also be first applied to employers hiring new recruits, with other categories such as refugees or unintended migrant workers to be considered for inclusion in the future.