LETTER | I refer to the letter entitled “Ramasamy has myopic view of democracy for workers”. Even though the piece questioned the veracity of my argument on workers’ democracy, I welcome a healthy debate about workers’ issues in the country, especially the contradictory nature of human resource developments.

The central point of the writer is that you cannot build up workers’ skills without a strong interventionist state. For him even though the state or government might be evil, but given the preponderant power of global capital, state power is required to keep employers at bay, in other words, to ensure their welfare, social and skill considerations are met.

For the writer. in the absence of state policies, workers given their subservience are in no position to bargain effectively with employers or owners of capital. From this perspective, the writer thinks that the state has a vital role to play in ensuring the developments of institutions and training centres to impart skills to workers.

The Ministry of Human Resources is credited for taking the necessary steps to ensure the creation of institutions and training centres to build up the levels among Malaysian workers. I have no quarrel with this, but only to mention that this is not something unique to the present government but was done much earlier and is being continued under the present regime.

My quarrel with the state is not so much external training programmes, but the failure to examine the political, social and economic conditions under which labour can contribute its values that come to be embedded in products.

My issue is not about the non-importance of skills training but rather how such an endeavour is complemented by the removal of legal and administrative mechanisms that constrain democracy amongst workers to freely negotiate with employers to determine the economic and social conditions of their existence.

The writer should not be naive to think that without the presence of the state, workers will be at the mercy of global capital. In fact, on the contrary, the reduction of state power will allow the working class to better negotiate and set terms in their favour. By the way, state intervention in labour matters is not to protect workers, but ensure the continuation of a system that that favours not the immediate interests of capital but the larger interests of the system as a whole.

Labour is not a factor of production as seen from a neo-liberal perspective but a component that adds value to the system as a whole. Training and education might be important but they external to the production process.

Innovation, skills and expertise are not just acquired from mere externalities but from allowing workers the freedom and passion to determine their own conditions of existence. The right to negotiate without restrictions is an important prerequisite for labour to create and recreate values that are so important to the production process that constitute the locomotive of the present system.

Compulsory minimum wage is not state intervention to save labour from the worst excesses the writer assumes. Rather, it is part of the whole ensemble of mechanisms that will not go beyond certain limits that might jeopardise the interests of capital and the ready presence of a large presence of reserve labour in the form of foreign workers.

In this respect, the large presence of foreign labour in Malaysia or elsewhere is not a mere accident.

The argument in support of statism is a poor and weak response to my thesis that freedom is essential for the internal generation of values amongst labour. Since Malaysia has low skills levels among workers, it is about time policy-makers pay attention to the question of human dignity in the form of labour democracy.

The writer is Penang deputy chief minister (II) and Perai assemblyperson.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.