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Stop vulture agents from preying on foreign workers

I would like to agree with the suggestion made that tabs should be kept of foreign workers .

But the tabs should be on the people who in fact exploit these poor workers and themselves live luxury lives.

With fast-rising cost and an apparent mismanagement of the country’s resources by our leaders, faster rising inflation is going to catch up with us and the middle and lower income groups are going to be the most affected.

As for foreign workers, popular destinations like Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States have been managing them very well. A visa is issued to a company or a person and he is fully responsible for them.

Funny, here in Malaysia, foreign workers arrive at the airport but the companies who hired them don’t come to pick them up. Why is it that the government is unable to track those who applied for the visa in the first place?

It is however not fair to entirely blame the employers. Companies applying for a visa on behalf of the employee are usually responsible for them until they go back for good. The real mess is created by outsourcing companies owned by people with political connections.

They trade in human beings or say, human labour. Workers are then ‘sold’ to temporary employers at a daily, weekly or monthly fee. But the worker gets just a fraction of that sum.

For example, they was a couple from Bangladesh working in a garment factory in Juru, Penang for 15 hours every day without leave. After rent and sundry shop bill were deducted they were left with only RM80 per month.

When the plight of a group of Pakistanis living in containers and working in scrap stores for meager wages came to light, they were taken to saw mill in a remote location and made to live and work in an environment worse than the Changi prison during WWII – heavily guarded by gangsters.

First, the poor worker sells or mortgages his ancestral properties, land and houses – or take loans from their ah long at a killing interest rate. Because of the poor economic conditions and lack of jobs in their home country, the need to go overseas to work is just overpowering. Those who earned much during earlier days when the demand was high and supply was scarce, become a subject for their envy.

Each one of them is forced to fork up to RM10,000 to obtain a visa which has an actual cost of just a fraction of that price. Approval and issuance of visas with falsified documentation has become the typical way of doing things.

There are even instances where immigration officers stationed in India for example resign to do manpower business because it is more rewarding. All the important players involved in the facilitation of passage in both the country of origin and the recipient country are well taken care of.

So, when the employers do not pick up the workers at the airport, the real culprits don’t get prosecuted. Most of the time anyway, a worker goes back after several years of work – still not able to recover from their rapidly multiplying debts.

Otherwise what explains the serious lack of prosecutions? What explains why recently, the celebrated head of enforcement, who did wonders in nailing ‘illegals’, was ‘forced’ to leave the immigration service? Why is it that the real situation on the ground does not reach the policy- makers?

Why is it that the government head in charge of such matters does not hear the cries of both the exploited foreign workers and the employers? Because they are fed ‘facts’ by the vultures prepared to do what it takes to stay in business. The foreign workers are just victims. The agents are the vultures.

As such, if there should be a study on the requirements of foreign workers, it must be done by an independent party with no relation to the government, it’s political leaders or any of the civil servants who are highly involved in the foreign worker trafficking business themselves. We should nail the real culprits. The ones who work in the corridors of power.

In this labour trafficking scheme, both the employer and the foreign workers usually become victims. The people who really make money, live in expensive houses, drive expensive cars and enjoy foreign holidays are the so called ‘manpower suppliers’ and the owners of outsourcing companies who live as parasites in the corridors of Putrajaya.

These outsourcing companies take away the meat and leave the gravy for the employers and the foreign workers. These are the people that must be kept under tabs, not the poor workers who come here to make a decent living and help their family back home survive the ever raging onslaught of poverty.

Contracting foreign workers directly to responsible employers is a more effective way to control and manage the required workforce. Outsourcing companies should be scrapped for good and no agents should be allowed to operate.

Candidates should be registered with the labour department of their own countries and prospective employers should pick their choice, personally apply for a visa for them and be directly responsible for them throughout their stay.

We must remember at all times that foreign workers are human beings, just like us. So the depression of wages is not because of ‘cheap’ labour. It is due to exploitation by manpower agents in both countries.

In some sectors, such as the cargo sector, working conditions are very tough and therefore the locals are not interested. So, to get the locals to work in a competitive manner and catch up with the increasing need for efficiency and productivity in the world’s shipping industry becomes very difficult.

The Human Resource Ministry has forced the employers to bear the high levy cost and is talking about increasing it further. How do they judge it? Its mind boggling.

What do we have to say about that? What do you tell those that have served the industry for many decades? How do you improve services at the port? How do you then get locals to be more interested in such jobs? Yet, getting workers from Immigration for the ports’ labour sub-sector – whose levy is among the highest – is still a nightmare.

Finally, it is erroneous to say that foreign workers are responsible for the depression of wages. It is the people in ‘power’ and the compromised civil servants whose enthusiasm in serving their present political masters and the ‘vultures’ that wander around the corridors of power – who actually manifest the rottenness of the whole foreign workers issue. And it is only possible to stop such abuses if non-political players are prevented from meddling with it.

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