Rajasekaran on outstanding labour issues
In the run-up to tomorrow's Malaysian Trades Union Congress elections, incumbent secretary-general G Rajasekaran speaks to malaysiakini on outstanding labour issues.
There is an urgent need to establish a fund to assist workers who are retrenched and remain unemployed. In the last three years, at least 10,000 workers did not get any compensation as stipulated in the Employment Act because employers had either absconded or been declared bankrupt.
The government should no longer remain indifferent to the MTUCs appeals to legislate a minimum wage of RM900. Its reluctance to intervene has encouraged employers to underpay workers. The full force of the globalisation process will add further pressure to lower the wages in the name of competitiveness.
With thousands of workers paid as low as RM300-RM400, the MTUC needs a team that is concerned about this issue and is willing to organise some kind of industrial action, like a nation-wide picket.
About 20 years ago, the MTUC had a nation-wide picket on issues regarding trade union rights, and it bore the intended results.
In the name of globalisation and competition, powerful foreign and local corporations have restricted growth and influence of trade unions, removed well-established minimum standards, blocked minimum wage legislation, weakened collective bargaining and played a prominent role in flooding the country with foreign workers.
Similarly, Malaysian banks have decided to outsource a number of activities to their subsidiaries. Despite strong objections against the move, the banks are insistent that employees accept their terms or face retrenchment. They have also ignored the unions demands to justify the outsourcing.
Prior to this, resulting from the governments directive to merge, the banks and financial institutions removed thousands of employees under the so-called Voluntary Separation Scheme (VSS). Subsequently, this scheme spread like wildfire to all sectors and reports from workers and affiliates showed that many were indeed compelled to accept or risk retrenchment with inferior compensation.
The last decade saw a tremendous influx of foreign workers which encouraged employers to practise discrimination and suppress wages for locals. Malaysias image was severely tarnished by the cruelty and sometimes savage treatment accorded to foreign workers by certain unscrupulous employers.
Despite widespread retrenchments, the government failed to heed the MTUCs call to freeze recruitment of foreign workers.
After months of protest, the scheme was suspended and subsequently scrapped. A protest scheduled for May 12 last year was called off by MTUC president Zainal Rampak after the prime minister intervened. Although scrapped, a colossal sum of RM280 million, calculated from a seven percent service charge on the total RM4 billion worth of annuities sold, have been siphoned off from members accounts to profit seven local insurance companies (led by Konsortium Anuiti Malaysia).
(The scheme was implemented on June 1, 2000.)
I feel it is very wrong and the EPF has failed to protect members interest at the negotiation stage at the EPF board level despite having workers representatives. The EPF also has this cant-care-less attitude where contributors were told to take the matter up with Bank Negara if they were unhappy with the seven percent deduction imposed upon withdrawal from the scheme.
Admittedly, our representatives have also failed to object at the planning stage, especially since the scheme was on the drawing board for at least a couple of years. It is our mistake which we must accept. In fact, Zainal had seconded both the motions accepting the annuity scheme and the reduction of the death and incapacitation benefits in Dewan Negara. As a result, the EPF reduced the death and incapacitation benefits from a minimum of RM1,000 to a maximum of RM30,000, to a flat rate of RM2,000 effective July 1, 2000.
But instead of admitting his mistake which can be forgiven, Zainal gathered a group of unions to endorse his wrongdoing, which is worse still and unforgivable. This is why we need checks and balances within the organisation.
Another issue is the increasingly lower dividend payments in recent years, with last years expected to be around five percent, making it the lowest in 25 years. As it is, the six percent for 2000 already upset a lot of contributors. The EPF, which handles about 10 million contributors accounts with a total sum worth RM186 billion, should account for the downtrend in the last 10 years.
The increasing trend involving the non-remittance of EPF contributions is a growing problem which needs to be tackled immediately. For this, the MTUC has taken a new two-pronged approach to report such cases as a criminal breach of trust under the Penal Code as well as the usual complaint under the EPF Act. So far, we have directed about 100 workers to lodge police reports nation-wide against errant employers. One good example is the case of the Workers Institute of Technology run by the Transport Workers Union which still owes employees a large chunk of EPF contributions.
In the Triennial Delegates Conference report to be presented during todays opening, I criticised Malaysias policy which contradicted existing laws and favoured multinational corporations anti-union stance.
The policy contradicts the Trade Unions Act and denied 15,000 electronics workers the right to establish an industrial union.
For more than two decades, the MTUC, trade unions and other international trade union movements have repeatedly highlighted the power and influence exerted by multinationals, and called on the ILO to introduce standards to regulate their behaviour.
We also want the government to enforce Article 10 of the Federal Constitution and remove all barriers obstructing workers right to join a trade union of their choice.
Are you sure you want to delete this comment?
This action cannot be undone.