The Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) will go ahead with its planned picket outside the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) building in Kuala Lumpur on May 12 if its general council agrees to the proposal, MTUC president Zainal Rampak said today.

Responding to Prime Minister's Dr Mahathir Mohamad's criticism against the move yesterday, Zainal said that the general council will meet on April 20 to decide whether to stage the picket to protest against the six percent dividend rate for year 2000 - the lowest in 26 years - announced by EPF in February.

Yesterday, Mahathir criticised MTUC for planning to picket against the EPF, saying such an approach would not solve anything. He also said that now is not the time to raise issues because the country "is facing a lot of problems".

Zainal, however, said the MTUC had a responsibility towards workers. "We have argued in the EPF board to be given a higher dividend, but unfortunately we lost," said Zainal in his speech at an MTUC forum on women workers' rights in Petaling Jaya.

"There are only five MTUC representatives on the EPF board compared with 18 employer representatives. Both the decisions of the majority and minority were submitted to the Finance Ministry. Unfortunately, the decision of the majority was upheld," he said.

He said that the picket, proposed by the general committee last Friday, was meant to urge EPF to be careful in its investments because there is a possibility that due to more 'unrealised losses', the dividend rate may go down to 2.5 percent - the lowest possible allowed by the EPF Act 1991.

No choice

To Mahathir's comment that MTUC did not meet with him to talk about the picket, Zainal said that the congress meets the prime minister once a year to discuss workers' issues and they have yet to convene this year since the June 25 meeting last year.

He refuted Mahathir's statement that the picket will jeopardise the country's economy, stating that the workers will be staging the picket outside their working hours.

"We do not mean to make matters worse. We have no other choice," said Zainal, adding that during the last financial crisis, workers did not stage pickets or strikes because they understood the economic situation of the country.

"But the question is we had an 8.5 percent growth last year and workers are asking how come EPF's dividend is only six percent?" he said.

On EPF taking up the unsubscribed portion of Time dotCom shares, Zainal said that MTUC representatives were not on the investment board.

He said he was invited to join the board, but declined when he was told that the board was only answerable to the Finance Ministry and not the EPF board.

Zainal also claimed workers had rejected Mahathir's call to reduce their EPF contribution from 11 percent to nine percent as part of a RM3 billion stimulus package to boost the economy through increasing spending ([#1] Workers' EPF reduction compulsory [/#], March 29).

Gender equality

Women and Family Development Minister Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, who opened the forum, however, urged Zainal not to encourage women to join the picket.

"Please do not teach them to do the wrong thing," she said in her speech, adding that the correct way to handle the issue was through discussion and negotiation.

"I am afraid that when women are taught to do the wrong thing, someday when their husbands cut their allowances by 50 percent, they will close the kitchen and picket outside the house," she added, much to the amusement of all those who were present.

She advised women workers not to be pressured by the men and to support only the good things proposed by MTUC.

She said the situation of women workers in Malaysia was better off than that of their counterparts in other countries.

"We do not have to riot like those in Indonesia, we do not have poverty like those in the Philippines, nor do we need to engage in prostitution like women in Thailand," she said.

She added that EPF's six percent rate was better off than a bank's interest rate which is about two to three percent.

T Pathma, a past president of MTUC women's section and one of the speakers at the forum, told reporters she was disappointed with Shahrizat's appeal to women not to picket.

"It is wrong to ask women to marginalise themselves from a movement which believes in unity in strength. We practise gender equality here. We talk about workers' rights and not women's rights," said Pathma.

She added: "It is all right if she had appealed to MTUC as a whole not to picket. Instead she is telling women to become weak and to go back home to the kitchen when a major event of the world agenda now is to encourage integration of women in trade unions."