‘Sarawak govt consulted on EA amendments, made no effort to amend SLO’

KUCHING: The Sarawak government was consulted on amendments of the Employment Act (EA) but engaged no effort in amending the Sarawak Labour Ordinance (SLO), claimed Andrew Lo.

The Sarawak Bank Employees Union chief executive officer further claimed that workers are “up in arms” that the state government had yet to agree to the amendment of the SLO.

“The fact that the state government has been consulted for the 2005 and 2012 amendments and again for the latest amendments is proof that the state government has always been consulted and its agreement sought.

“Otherwise the federal government would have tabled the SLO amendments together with the EA in 2021,” the Labour Law Reform Coalition deputy president said in a statement yesterday.

Lo said the Sarawak government did not table the proposed amendments to the SLO in 2012 when the EA amendments were implemented to provide for prevention of sexual harassment at the workplace.

“So instead of needing the state government’s agreement as it is practised now, it just wants

The fact that the state government has been consulted for the 2005 and 2012 amendments and again for the latest amendments is proof that the state government has always been consulted and its agreement sought. Otherwise the federal government would have tabled the SLO amendments together with the EA in 2021.

Andrew Lo

consultation in future?

“This dilly-dally is the main reason why the last amendments of the SLO in 2005 took 46 years. It has been 12 years since the amendments to the EA were implemented in 2012 and three years since the 2021 EA amendments,” he said.

He questioned how this undue delay would protect the interests of workers in Sarawak.

“It seems that Sarawak workers are made to pay for the quest for autonomy. Autonomy is supposed to benefit all and cannot be suffocating,” he said.

Lo said the Malaysian Trades Union Congress Sarawak’s position as decided by its triennial delegates conference, representing all affiliated unions in the state in 2022 and 2019, is for the SLO to be amended without further delay and that workers rights should not be hijacked over constitutional quibbles.

He also challenged the state government to push for provisions that are better than those implemented in the EA if it is serious about protecting workers’ interests.

Last Thursday, Lo had slammed the state government’s continued failure to amend the SLO despite the EA having been amended in 2007 and again in 2021.

He said there is no excuse for the state not to amend the SLO to be on a par with the EA in Peninsular Malaysia, since a World Bank economist had called Sarawak a high-income state.