LETTERS: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's announcement to reduce, if not eliminate, the role of recruitment agencies requires consideration.
A concern is Malaysia's view of foreign workers, with some calling for the need to have the required skillset or qualifications among hired workers and others perceiving their presence as a security risk.
As it is, Malaysia cannot afford to continually recruit foreign labour without addressing the question of how the government views the presence of foreign workers.
To view them as a threat to security is an ill-conceived idea as this has:
ALLOWED different government agencies to handle labour migration matters, such as police, Human Resources Ministry, Immigration Department and Labour Department; and,
ALLOWED the media to continue to shape public opinion that foreign workers are poor, dirty, uncouth and potential criminals, wedging a divide of "us" versus "them" and "we" versus "they".
The above factors help shape the practices and attitude of recruitment agencies and employers in their dealings with foreign workers.
Employment abuses and exploitation include a lack of social protection, like medical benefits and weekly day off.
By exacting exorbitant recruitment fees from employers and foreign workers, it demonstrates defiance of ad hoc government regulations.
So the call to eliminate the role of recruitment agencies in the migration saga has its basis.
Employers are often at the mercy of recruitment agencies.
As recruitment agencies deal with workers, they fan concerns, such as advising employers to keep their domestic workers' passport, confiscate their smartphones, deduct their meagre monthly salaries in the guise of "savings", and disallowing workers from going out on their own once a week.
They privileged themselves by saying that "if you give them too much freedom, they will run away".
And most employers believe the recruitment agencies since employers have paid so much money to bring in foreign domestic workers.
Some employers pay as high as RM16,000 to RM18,000 to agents to bring in a worker through legal means, contending that they pay runners from the sending and receiving countries, to the detriment of employers and workers.
Last week, in response to the idea mooted by Anwar, some registered recruitment agencies argued that it was unregistered or illegal agencies that carried out exploitative transactions with employers or workers.
There exists a considerable number of unregistered or illegal agencies that violate labour regulations.
It is also true that registered or legal agencies commit illicit ways to maximise profit and control workers and employers.
As mentioned earlier, these registered agencies, sometimes in cahoots with employers, keep the passports of domestic workers, even if it is against the Passport Act 1966.
Perhaps we should look at how Hong Kong and Singapore have managed the migration regime so that we can adopt better strategies to address employment problems.
In the same breath, Malaysia needs to rethink the level of faith placed in the Labour Department to manage labour migration.
Allocating the management responsibility to so many agencies, as we experience now, derails the hiring process and worsens red tape, and at the expense of well-meaning employers and workers.
DR LINDA LUMAYAG
Research fellow, Ungku Aziz Centre for Development Studies, Universiti Malaya
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times