Five firms fined for violating Minimum Wage Order

KUCHING: Five companies in Sarawak were fined under Section 43 of the National Wages Consultative Council Act 2011 last month for failing to pay the minimum wage to employees.

Sarawak Labour Department director Awang Raduan Awang Omar said the companies received the sentences in separate Magistrate’s Courts throughout the state.

He said two of the cases were at the Sibu Magistrate’s Court where one case was fined RM3,800 in default one month’s jail while another was fined RM2,000 in default four months’ imprisonment.

At a separate proceeding conducted at the Kuching Magistrate’s Court, a company was fined a total of RM9,000 and ordered to settle salary arrears amounting to RM5,413.92 to employees who had made claims in the case.

In Bintulu, the Magistrate’s Court there sentenced a company to a fine of RM10,000 for violating the Minimum Wage Order and directed the employer to settle the salary arrears amounting to RM6,780.90 to nine employees.

“Meanwhile, in a separate proceeding in the Kuching

Magistrate’s Court on Nov 19. an employer was fined RM5,000 in default five months’ imprisonment for

disobeying the order of the Director of Labour Sarawak under Section 130C (a) by failing to comply with the Form C Order of the Industrial Court i.e. the payment of the balance of the salary claimed by a case complainant,” he said in a statement yesterday.

He stressed that these court cases should serve as a reminder and lesson to employers in the private sector against disobeying the Minimum Wage Order and labour law in Sarawak.