SOME Malaysian employers are one recalcitrant lot. It has been three months since the new amendments to the Employment Act 1955 came into force, yet there are still an unhealthy number of Malaysian employers who refuse to obey them.
The situation is so bad that it has even irked the Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF), an organisation that is often protective of employers.
The Employment (Amendment) Act 2022, which was passed last year during the March sitting of Parliament, introduces a few key changes required by the International Labour Organisation, chief among them a reduction in the working hours from 48 to 45, an increase in maternity leave from 60 to 98 days and an introduction of a seven-day paternity leave.
Not that the government didn't give employers time. MEF wanted time and the government generously gave it, perhaps more than employers deserved.
The amendments were to take effect on Sept 1 last year, but the Human Resources Ministry postponed it to January this year. Perhaps, the ministry banked on employers' sincerity in wanting to see the changes implemented.
This despite many non-governmental organisations (NGOs) calling on the Human Resources Ministry not to delay the implementation of the amendments. Now we know how right the NGOs were.
Time, it turns out, isn't an issue, but greed is. Driven by their profiteering motive, the errant employers are finding their way around the amendments, according to what employees are telling the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC).
One "creative" illegality is keeping employees working at employers' premises during break time, when they should be allowed an hour away from the office. Others are not so subtle law-breakers. Many employers, especially contractors and subcontractors engaged in the construction business, force their employees to work 72 hours a week when the law limits it to 45 hours. Others haven't implemented the minimum wage of RM1,500, which came into force in May last year.
If what MTUC told this newspaper yesterday is right, there are more than 50,000 workers nationwide who are being forced to work for less. MEF then was quick to tell the media that companies were not ready because the rise in the salary was costing them between 25 to 35 per cent more. It is profit employers are concerned about, not the welfare of their workers. MEF will do well to help the government police its errant members rather than rationalising their errancy.
The Human Resources Ministry, too, should work on its policing efforts. It needs to be more proactive. Just waiting for employees to come to them won't work in a climate of heightened employer errancy. Don't the public complaints of the MTUC and NGOs to this and other newspapers about the subtle and blatant illegalities of employers count as such? The ministry knows this, but we will say it anyway.
There are Malaysian employers out there, especially in the plantation industry, who are a reputational risk to the country by the way they treat their local and foreign workers. A few, by their business and labour practices, have already ruined our reputation in the United States and Europe.
A team from the United Kingdom, which visited Malaysia in February, called on the Malaysian glove industry to monitor forced labour practices following allegations against it. Recalcitrance has a limit, especially when it is illegal.