WANT to know which employers flout the law? Well, wait for a tragedy to happen. Until then, it is a "catch-me-if-you-can" race between errant employers and regulators.
On Tuesday night, that tragedy happened when a warehouse under construction collapsed in Batu Maung, near George Town in Penang.
There, three Bangladeshi workers died and two others were injured. It turns out, as it often does with employers of foreign workers, five out of nine foreign workers affected by the tragedy had no records with the Social Security Organisation (Socso). This was confirmed by no less than Human Resources Minister V. Sivakumar.
We shouldn't be surprised. Errant employers, especially in the construction industry, are known for their notoriety in breaking laws just to pocket the extra cash. To them, registering their foreign workers with Socso means a slice taken away from their profit pie. To them, profit always precedes people.
This is clearly an offence under the Employers' Social Security Act of 1969 punishable by a fine of RM10,000 or a two years' imprisonment or both. Excepting tragedy, how often do these offending employers get caught? The frequency with which the employers are flouting the law says something about the law and its enforcement. To the errant employers, a fine of RM10,000 is just a pittance.
Besides, how often have you heard of employers being jailed? None. The law is lame and its enforcement lax.
How serious is the errancy among employers? Very serious. In 2021, a former human resources minister admitted as much when he disclosed that more than 2,500 employers were charged in court and, to his knowledge then, not one was sent to jail.
If deterrence comes in such lame and lax shape, it is small wonder that there were more than 2,500 convicted employers. How many escaped the enforcers' dragnet? Your guess is as good as ours.
Enforcement has never been Malaysian regulators' strong point. It is a work in progress, they want us to believe. But how long does progress take? The very same minister told the media on Oct 23, 2021, that Socso was rolling out a full-fledged operation to rein in employers who failed to pay workers' contribution.
Two years is enough time to build the enforcement muscle, but why are errant employers like those involved in the Batu Maung tragedy still escaping the regulators' dragnet? As a host to foreign workers who come here to help build our economy, we, especially those tasked with ensuring their welfare, must not allow any let up on this.
This is after all an age of technology, which makes it possible to know which employers engage foreign workers and whether or not they contribute to the workers' social security fund. How could we be an IT hub for the region when there isn't connectivity in such simple things? To act after death is too late for the bereaved and their families. After the fact is never good.