GEORGE TOWN: All foreign workers in the country, including maids, will soon be included into the Social Security Organisation (Socso) scheme, says Human Resources Minister M. Kulasegaran.
He said the ministry was in the process of amending the law, and the implementation would begin in the early part of next year.
At present, all foreign workers are covered under the Workmen’s Compensation Act 1952, an insurance which every employer must take for their foreign workers.
The maximum compensation for workplace-related accidents is only RM23,000, and that too, only in cases of permanent disablement.
“We plan to abolish the Workmen’s Compensation Act 1952. This means that every foreign worker in the country, including maids in houses, will be covered by Socso.
“Why we are doing this? Under the International Labour Organisation (ILO), we have ratified the convention several years ago, where one of the conditions is to ensure ‘standardisation in benefits among the foreign and local workers’,” he said after a working visit to the Bukit Kukus landslide site this afternoon.
There are currently 1.9 million foreign workers in the country.
Kulasegaran also had recently announced that taxi and e-hailing drivers would come under the Socso scheme.
Asked if a grace period would be given for the implementation, Kulasegaran replied in the affirmative.
“But if you really see, we have been talking about this in the last two to three months. To be frank, there will surely be a grace period given, but the amount involved is very small for a worker, only about RM14 or RM15,” he pointed out.
Elaborating, Kulasegaran said unlike the Workmen’s Compensation Act 1952 which has only one upfront payment, Socso has a lifelong benefit, depending on the degree of injuries sustained.
“For a start, certain amount of money will be given immediately. The rehabilitation unit of Socso will then analyse if the worker is fit to work. If not fit, then the worker will be given monthly lifelong pension. Even their children will benefit from it.
“However, in the event where the worker can get back to work, we will send the worker to Malacca, where we got one of the best rehabilitation hospitals in Southeast Asia, with state-of-the-art equipment and facilities, built at half-a-billion ringgit,” he said.
On a different matter, Kulasegaran was asked to comment on Home Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s statement yesterday that there would be no more recruiting foreign workers through agents, to which he said “all of you did not make it (what Muhyiddin said) out properly”.
Elaborating, he said they, particularly DAP, had been complaining about the 260 outsources agents for a long time now.
“These agencies will bring in foreign workers and provide them to those needing them, and the Immigration Department will have no clue as to who the employers are. The current system is not proper and as such must go back to the ministry as there is a special act governing it.
“So, to date, we have managed to reduce the number of foreign workers being brought into the country to only 26,000 compared to 250,000 previously.
“This is also important to overcome human trafficking. We have been put on the second-tier by the United States and cannot afford to go down in position or we’ll be in trouble. What trouble? The westerners and others will ask their people not to invest here,” he stressed.
He said those wanting to recruit foreign workers could still go through agents or via online.
“There is no question about it. Our aim is just to stop modern-day slavery,” he added.