KUALA LUMPUR: The government has been urged to reject any moves by employers to delay the enforcement of the amended Workers' Minimum Standards of Housing and Amenities Act 1990 which came into force Sept 1.
The Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) said any delay in the implementation of housing and amenities for foreign workers would amount to systemic exploitation of migrants.
Congress secretary-general J.Solomon said the reasons cited by the Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) in urging the government not to enforce the new law on workers' accommodation were lame as employers continued to deny workers their basic rights to decent living conditions.
"It must be pointed out that every time employers in Malaysia are asked to do their bit to improve the livelihood of workers or provide them with some form of job security, the MEF and the business community are quick to claim it would force them to incur heavy losses.
"The reality is that for decades, employers had continued to reap huge profits - not by investing in new technology or automation - but by hiring unskilled local and migrant workers on meagre salaries with little benefits," he said in a statement today.
Solomon said migrant workers suffer a double whammy as apart from low pay, they were also forced to live in cramped and unhygienic conditions with little legal protection.
He said the amendments to the act were meant to put an end to foreign workers living in squalid conditions at construction project sites, three room-terrace houses, apartments or shop lots.
"Often as many as 20 people are stuffed into single units and live in deplorable conditions and structures that lack basic amenities," he said.
He urged the government not be taken in again by the MEF's threats of retrenchment.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the MEF and like-minded groups received billions of ringgit in soft loans and other forms of financial assistance for their members on the pretext of keeping workers at their jobs, he said.
"However, despite the billions of ringgit in taxpayers' money given through the Prihatin and Penjana packages to the employers, hundreds of thousands of workers were laid off or forced to take deep pay cuts," Solomon said.
He said as such the government must not be cowed by the threats of retrenchment every time initiatives were made to improve the lives of workers, who were mostly in the B40 and M40 groups.
Solomon also called upon the MEF to cease what he claimed as unethical tactics of using the livelihood of workers as leverage to force the government to delay or abolish laws that were in the interest of workers and the economy.
"The undisputable fact is that amendments to the Workers' Minimum Standards of Housing and Amenities Act 1990 were passed by Parliament in July 2019 and employers were given more than 12 months to take the necessary measures to comply.
"But most employers took a lackadaisical approach and did little to ensure workers were provided with accommodation according to the standards prescribed in the new law," he said.
He said in May, the employers were granted a further three month reprieve to do that, but again, there was no urgency to address the issue, despite several migrant workers quarters becoming Covid-19 clusters.
Now, one week into the month of the new law being enforced, the MEF is claiming that its members were not briefed about the regulations by the government and that they were also taken by surprise.
The government, in particular the Human Resources Ministry must not succumb to such an unethical demand, Solomon said.