Car wash owners join call for migrant workers
Two associations today urged the government to reopen the hiring of migrant workers in the car wash industry, citing urgent demands.
Malaysian Building and Vehicles Cleaners Organisation (Mabco) vice-president Fariz Ishak said car wash owners are faced with double jeopardy of limited interest from local workers and an ongoing freeze for migrant workers.
Two associations today urged the government to reopen the hiring of migrant workers in the car wash industry, citing urgent demands.
Malaysian Building and Vehicles Cleaners Organisation (Mabco) vice-president Fariz Ishak said car wash owners are faced with double jeopardy of limited interest from local workers and an ongoing freeze for migrant workers.
"We found that car wash owners are having problems hiring workers in the industry. We have no choice because we have tried giving opportunities to local youths and workers.
"However, the locals would prefer to work for Lalamove and Grab, so we have no choice but to look for migrants," said Fariz.
Speaking on behalf of some 400 car wash owners, Fariz said Mabco urged the government to allow them to once again hire migrant workers under a sub-sector of the service industry.
Earlier, Mabco had submitted a memorandum with their demands to the Home Ministry and Human Resources Ministry in Putrajaya.
The car wash sector is among a list of service sub-sectors hit with a recruitment freeze on migrant workers since 2013, also covering smaller businesses including textile, goldsmiths, barbershop, sundry shops and newspaper delivery.
Their demand also followed Human Resources Minister M Saravanan's recent announcement on new entries of migrant workers, which excluded the service sub-sectors.
Forced to adopt illegal tactics
Meanwhile, Fariz noted that the government had previously granted permission for car wash owners to hire migrant workers from among those registered under the 6P amnesty exercise.
"At the time, their work permit was written as general workers at a car wash, explicitly meant for the sub-sector.
"But when we renewed the permit last year, the category was changed to 'cleaner', and that's where we ran into problems," he said
Under the new permit, Fariz said car wash owners risk being accused of wrongfully employing their migrant workers in the event of an Immigration Department raid.
Mabco secretary R Suresh Rao, however, said there were also car wash owners forced to adopt the "illegal tactic" of hiring general cleaners to work at their businesses.
"This is wrong under the law, but they have no choice with the government's decision to impose a freeze on the sub-sector.
"We urge the government to reopen hiring for migrant workers to work in the car wash sector as soon as possible," he said.
