Imagine working a whole month and then receiving your pay in three installments in the course of the following month. Imagine receiving it in four installments. And when your pay is only RM900 a month, think of receiving it in four bits.
Unthinkable? Yet that has been precisely what 300 workers of a electrical appliance manufacturer in Kampar have been subjected to. Not just for one or two months but for the past 10 months!
When this outrageous arrangement was first introduced by the management in early 2013, workers protested, and the matter was resolved after the intervention of the labour department. However one of the leaders of the protest was black marked and sacked shortly after.
And the said company continued to disregard the law by failing to make EPF payments, and by dragging its feet in implementing the minimum wage.
Finally in January 2014, when all employers had to comply, workers looked forward to the RM900 minimum wage, but they were to be hugely disappointed. To date they have never even once received the RM900 in one payment. It was always in three installments but that wasn’t the worst. In early November, the management sent out a memo stating that they were going to pay workers in four installments!
Managing their household finances on three installments had been a tough enough struggle for the 300 workers of the company. Come payday, like everybody else they had the usual payments to make – rental or housing loan, school bus fees and educational expenses, grocery bills etc. None of these financial obligations could be broken up into three or four bits. No bank would accept housing loan repayments in three or four installments in a month!
About 50 workers began to picket to protest the new wage arrangement. Labour department officials visited the factory, met the management and workers, and an unhappy settlement was reached. The workers gained nothing.
The company was allowed to pay their workers in two installments until March 2015, or in three if its financial situation necessitated (which flexibility the employer has immediately exploited when paying the previous month’s wages).
Labour officials advised workers that the company had financial problems, and if they persisted in demanding wages in one payment, they risked losing their jobs as the company might have to shut down. The options presented were for the workers to continue working quietly on the terms of the company or file a complaint at the labour department and look for another job.
Given their own fears based on the insecure job environment for Malaysian workers, lack of faith in the labour department to protect their rights, and the generally dis-empowered state of workers, the most likely option of most workers would be to continue working, and resign if they find another job.
Is the company really doing badly?
On its website, the company promotes itself as a leading manufacturer of lighting products in Malaysia, with a factory in China. Its financial information for the year ended 2012 shows a loss. But other factors indicate business as usual or even better than usual:
- As recently as in October 2014, the company was advertising job vacancies for administrative positions
- Overtime work is offered to a certain number of workers regularly, and even now there is a night shift
- It has been awarded many government ‘retrofitting’ contracts such as in various premises in Putrajaya and KLCC.
On what basis did the Human Resources and Home Ministries approve the company ’s application for migrant workers when it showed losses for 2012?
The Human Resources Ministry would have information based on workers’ complaints in early 2013 about the company’s failure to pay wages according to the Employment Act, its failure to make EPF payments, and then its resistance towards paying the minimum wage.(Expectedly, the migrant workers of The company are also victims of the company’s oppressive wage arrangement).
Even if despite signs to the contrary, the company is facing some financial problems, how much and for how long are workers expected to make sacrifices? We are not talking about a situation where the minimum wage is a decent living wage that rises in tandem with the cost of living, and where allowances further add to the worker’s income.
This is a situation of the most minimum of standards where the government has allowed employers to include allowances to make up the already meagre RM900 minimum wage! We are talking about low-wage earners whose minimum wage is barely enough to make ends meet especially in the context of rapidly rising prices.
The Human Resources Minister Richard Riot told Parliament yesterday that the rate of unemployment in Malaysia is currently 2.7 percent, which he says by ILO standards is considered full employment.
Going by his claims, if even during good times like now, employers deny workers the minimum due to them, shouldn’t the government order them to abide by the law or close down?
It is not acceptable that the government should let 300 workers and their families languish in hardship in order to preserve its business-friendly image.
( Editor's note: The identity of the company has been withheld )
RANI RASIAH is Buntong PSM secretary/central committee member.
