Migrant workers deserve much better
KONGSI. The word evokes different images for different people.
It means to share, but it also means triads. There was “Kongsi Raya” when Chinese New Year and Hari Raya fell close to each other and there was shared celebration among the communities.
Then, there are the “kongsi gelap”, the triads and gangs that are the bane of our society.
Over time, it has also taken on a different meaning – the shared accommodation given to foreign workers who come to work in construction sites here.
Cramped, dank, uncomfortable, unsanitary and almost demeaning to humans, these kongsi house thousands of people who come here to build this country, at the same time hoping to build a future for themselves.
We all know about these kongsi. We pass them every day: slum-like shanties peeking out from behind sheets of corrugated steel at almost every construction site in the country.
The members of The Star’s R.AGE team took a trip into these kongsi to see how the people there live. In most cases, they were appalled.
They spent nights speaking to the migrant workers living there and started to appreciate the paradox of the word.
They are here for a better life, yet find themselves in conditions one Bangladeshi worker described as “worse than the garbage dumps beside the slums in Bangladesh”.
They have no comfortable place to sleep in, change or bathe, not even proper toilets.
They live in conditions that often lead to disease. Their deaths go unnoticed.
For what they bring to the country, they deserve better – much better.
We Malaysians now find ourselves caught in a paradox as well.
The Malaysian economy is dependent on these workers, yet we don’t seem to want to acknowledge their contributions.
Their cheap labour helps keep prices low, yet we often complain that they take our jobs.
We vacillate between banning them and welcoming them, blaming them for crime in the country and then offering them charity.
It is as if we just don’t know what to do with them.
A clear way forward is necessary. As is often the case, we look to the authorities for regulation and responsible implementation of those regulations.
Thankfully, even as we speak, the Human Resources Ministry is drafting new legislation to regulate workers’ housing.
From what we know, the law will be comprehensive and is slated to be tabled in Parliament at its next sitting.
It will give these migrant workers proper accommodation, with conditions that are sanitary and hygienic. They will have space for recreation and for rest.
It remains for us, the general public, to decide how we want to treat migrant workers.
To understand what we need to do, many of us have only to look back in history – to the time when our ancestors first set foot on these lands. We believe we can find our answers there.