The Selangor Industrial Court today dismissed the case of 54 Indonesian workers, who were claiming unpaid wages, on the grounds that they had entered the country illegally.

"Being illegal immigrants they came here without proper documents, as such they cannot be entertained by the court," said its president Yaacop Mohd Yatim.

However, he said if the claimants disagreed with the decision they could appeal to the High Court within the next 14 days.

The decision was expected since the workers were informed during the second arbitration at the labour department last month that their immigration status was in question.

Their counsel Md Radzi Mustafa said if there is an appeal, the High Court will have to decide on the question of law if the matter should be heard before an Industrial Court again.

"The High Court has to decide if illegal immigrants have the right to work or be paid for their work. If it is otherwise, this would set a precedent for other parties without proper documents to be cautious," he said.

Md Radzi said he will advise the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur and Indonesia's Labour and Transmigration Minister Fahmi Idris, who engaged his services, to file an appeal.

Shortchanged claim

The 54 workers were among the 90 Indonesian illegal workers who claimed that their employer -subcontractor Sri Mega Jaya - shortchanged them of wages amounting to RM150,000 after they had worked on a condominium project in Damansara Damai, Selangor.

The main contractor of the project is Plato Construction (M) Sdn Bhd which is wholly-owned by MK Land Holdings, a company listed on the main board of Bursa Malaysia.

The workers had written a letter urging MK Land executive chairperson Mustapha Kamal Abu Bakar to look into their plight.

A police report was also lodged by the Malaysian-based workers' support group - Labour Resource Centre - against Mustapha for allegedly hiring and not paying the wages of illegal workers.

MK Land, in turn, denied that they had employed any undocumented migrant workers

On Feb 18, the workers also lodged a police report against Human Resources Minister Dr Fong Chan Onn after he made a statement that Sri Mega Jaya had given the wages for the 90 workers, which according to him amounted to RM500,000, to an intermediary who had since absconded.

The workers returned to Indonesia at the eleventh hour before the amnesty period for the illegal migrants ended on Feb 28. On the same day, their claim was unexpectedly accepted by the labour department .

Three representatives of the workers, a representative from the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur and non-governmental organisation Migrant Care country coordinator Alex Ong were also present at the court this afternoon.