KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) has slammed Human Resources Minister M. Kulasegaran and accused him of tabling labour laws, which are deemed unsuitable, in Parliament.
The congress was also upset that the minister had taken an aggressive approach in dealing with private sector worker representatives by refusing to allow the National Labour Advisory Council (NLAC) to discuss and reach a joint solution on the proposed amendments to the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Bill 2019 (IRA) before tabling them in the Dewan Rakyat.
“He did not allow the NLAC to discuss and reach a joint solution to the amendments
of the IRA, hence his claim that his ministry had effectively engaged the MTUC and
the Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF), the two main constituents of the NLAC
is false and misleading.
“Kulasegaran’s stand is that the ministry is not duty-bound to get any form of endorsement from the NLAC as the International Labour Organisation Convention 144 on Tripartite Consultant (C144) only speaks about consultation.
“However, a bit of effort by the minister and/or his officers would have revealed that the ILO National Tripartite Social Dialogue Guide to improve governance clearly states that social dialogue must be effective and meaningful.
“The ILO Thesaurus defines Tripartite Consultation as the interaction of the government, employers and workers (through their representatives) as equal and independent partners to seek solutions to issues of common concern.
“In other words, it is the involvement of the social partners alongside the government on equal footing in decision-making,” the MTUC said in a hard-hitting sttement today.
In a nutshell, the MTUC said, the tripartite consultation means the three parties discuss and reach a joint solution.
“The only organ in UN (United Nations) which has tripartite consultation and International
Labour Standards is the ILO”.
The MTUC said the key was to ensure that the views of those concerned, namely workers and employers organisations, would be taken into account by the government before
decisions were taken.
“This is stated clearly in C144 and the ILO Social Dialogue Guide.
“The convention also says that the consultation procedure may set the objective of reaching a
consensus.”
The MTUC’s response comes following a Human Resources Ministry’s statement that amendments to labour law do not need the endorsement of the MTUC and MEF.
The MTUC said it regreted that Kulasegaran had conveniently forgotten his own pledge to have NLAC and its technical committee deliberate on the proposed amendments and reach a consensus before the IRA amendments were submitted to the Attorney-General’s Chambers and were tabled in Parliament.
“Up till now, the minister has also failed to answer MTUC ‘s simple question — how
many of the NLAC meetings chaired by him or his officials had specifically discussed
proposed amendments to the IRA or the Trade Unions Act and the Employment Act.
Kulasegaran said, in a statement, that MTUC and MEF representatives had attended nine NLAC meetings this year, before the labour laws were tabled.
MTUC was also upset that the minister had been giving misleading statements, but had not responded to their challenge to make public the minutes of the NLAC meeting.
“By making public the minutes or at least providing the media access to them, the public can easily judge if indeed, effective and meaningful consultations were
carried out by MOHR in accordance with C144 which the ministry refers to.”
The MTUC’s stand is that the NLAC was never used as an effective forum of consultation on the labour law reforms as intended by C144.
“We also stand by our statement that the minister had undermined the NLAC and unilaterally handed a set of bad laws to Parliament for approval on Oct 7 and 9.
The congress said that despite the various statements issued on the matter, the minister and his officials had failed to debunk MTUC’s allegations.
“Suffice to say, to the MTUC which represents 15 million workers and the MEF, the two main constituents of NLAC, the amendments are not groundbreaking and do not reflect the wishes or aspirations of their respective members and affiliates.”
The MTUC said it was compiling a detailed list of its objections to the amendments which would be made public.
“For now, it must be said that a number of the amendments are in direct contradiction of other provisions of the labour laws and International Labour Standards.
“Some of the amendments will also lead to disharmony among unions and cause chaos in the companies which will forsake the rights of the workers to pursue collective agreements with employers effectively,” it said.
The congress also added that it found it strange that the Human Resources Ministry had acknowledged that MTUC secretary-general J. Solomon and MEF gave their written comments on the proposed amendments.
“The MOHR has mistakenly taken this as evidence that it carried out meaningful consultations.
“However, the public must be left wondering why the MOHR made no mention that their comments were discussed at NLAC meetings in the spirit of tripartism.
“The simple answer is because there was no such meeting of meaningful consultations to address our (MTUC, MEF) comments,” MTUC said.