The Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) has shot down the proposal for a minimum wage but the government has vowed to be persistent in the matter.

Human Resource Minister Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam said that though the proposal for a minimum wage for all workers in the country had been rejected by the MEF, the government would not give up on the proposal and would push for it on a sectoral basis for a start.

Subramaniam said he met MEF representatives yesterday in Kuala Lumpur and the federation had rejected the idea to introduce a minimum wage for all workers in the country. The meeting was Subramaniam’s first with the MEF since assuming the post of Human Resource Minister in late March.

"They (MEF) are not agreeable to it (a minimum wage policy). But on our part, the ministry, the Economic Planning Unit and Treasury will discuss the issue to work out a minimum wage formula.

"The minimum wage we want to introduce is for all, including foreign workers.
Even in Parliament, we have differences of opinion as to how much the minimum wage should be ... RM900, RM1,500, RM700. Ten people have 10 different minimum wage limits.

“If we take the RM1,500 limit, then (domestic) maids too have to be paid the amount. The impact on the country’s salary scales would be tremendous. We also need to ensure that new jobs are created. The impact minimum wage would have on foreign investments also needs to be looked into. We have to look at all these implications,” he told reporters after presenting the ministry’s excellence awards, here.

He said that once the government found a system to address all these issues, it would definitely introduce the minimum wage policy.

He said the ministry was going on a sectoral basis in introducing the minimum wage policy, with the plantation sector to be the first.

"But a national minimum wage policy would cut across the board, even small- and medium-size enterprises like small workshops. Once it is introduced, all employers have to abide by the policy and the government would act as the monitoring agency,” he added.

The minister also said that though the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) had been fighting for this policy for a very long time, the private sector umbrella union has to also take into consideration the views of the employers.

“The market and demand are working well in Malaysia. Salaries of workers are not stagnant, except in some sectors. The employers also need to bear in mind that workers tend to go for better-paying jobs.

"The employers themselves must be committed to provide for better salaries in order to retain good workers. So they must compromise, either pay or lose good employees,” said Subramaniam.

On another matter, the minister said that in the next three years the government intended to decrease the number of foreign workers in the country, from the present 2.1 million workers to 1.6 million.

"Before the end of the Ninth Malaysia Plan, we want to reduce by at least 500,000 foreign workers. Since the start of the plan, there has been a creation of 500,000 new jobs,” he added.

He said the government was also confident that it would reduce the nation’s unemployment rate of 3.1 per cent.