IT is all things Malaysian now. Including maids. Covid-19 has closed all doors into the country. Other countries have been forced to do the same. Covid-19 may take at least two years to go away.
And that, too, if the World Health Organisation has got its calculations right. We must not pitch our hopes so high. Foreign maids are not going to head this way any time soon for at least two reasons.
One, countries where our maids come from are slamming the doors shut. And for a good reason. They do not want their citizens to take Covid-19 with them to host countries or to bring the disease back home. Malaysians must appreciate this.
Two, even if the source countries — officially 13 of them — open their international borders, our Foreign Workers Centralised Management System will not be able to process their applications. It is time to go local, at least for now. But before this can happen, a few things need changing.
Firstly, Malaysian employers must be prepared to pay more than what they are paying foreign maids. Thanks to the government of the Philippines, a Filipino maid gets a minimum wage of RM1,800. Maids from 12 other countries receive a lot less. This will not do for our local maids.
Unlike foreign domestic workers, local maids will demand more and work less. Our employers may have to dish out something close to RM2,700, a number that Bank Negara Malaysia calls the living wage. BNM's living wage doesn't override the minimum wage, but it does point to a minimum acceptable living standard in Malaysia. Good service often comes with a high wage tag. The further away the wage is, the lower the chance for the employer to hire a domestic help locally.
Even if he manages to hire one, retaining the maid will be hard. Do not be surprised if laments of a maid for every week in the year become common. Think of it this way. There will be savings of agency fees with every direct local recruitment. Agency abuse, too, could be ended this way.
Granted, not all will be able to afford paying such high wages. Such employers may have to make lifestyle changes. One such change would be less domestic help hours for lower wages. This calls for adjustments in family dynamics.
Secondly, employer-maid relations needs a makeover, says Adrian Pereira of North South Initiative, a non-governmental organisation (NGO). "Servility should not be in the equation at all." The attitude that domestic help is a 24-7 slave machine must be discarded. Understandably, local workers aren't going to toil this way. Very few will want to be stay-at-home maids. Be prepared for an eight-hour day. Many Malaysian employers may not have treated their foreign domestic help like this, but this is the reality under the new normal. Plus, it is the right way to treat someone who is helping them live a good life.
Finally, as there surely will be errant Malaysian employers, the government needs to fortify the protection domestic workers receive from local laws, says Irene Xavier, executive director, Persatuan Sahabat Wanita Selangor, an NGO. A first step is to drop "domestic workers" as an excluded category from Schedule 1 of the Employment Act 1955.
In this manner, benefits that go the way of other workers will also head towards domestic workers. Malaysian employers may not appreciate it, but domestic workers surely will.