End of woes

The government must ensure that the new recruitment system is at the very least better than the current one

HOME Affairs Minister Tan Sri Muhyddin Yassin on Wednesday announced the government’s plan to put an end to foreign worker recruitment by private companies, a system that has been a bane to employers and migrants. As part of the revamp, the oversight of the new process will be taken over by the Human Resources Ministry from next year with the recruitment being managed by private employment agencies. Would this new system be a better system? It can be if it sheds everything that is wrong with the current system. First of all, it must be a transparent system that every deserving employer can access. Under the old opaque process, nominal “employers” who existed only on paper were able to beat the system by securing a permit to recruit foreign workers. Having secured them, they were then able to farm out the workers to employers who needed them. Encouraged by the ease with which agency fees could be harvested, middlemen mushroomed. Neither the employers nor the workers gained from such an opaque process. The country most certainly did not. Besides, a process such as this makes it easy for malpractices to creep in. And this adds to the cost of doing business in Malaysia. Not to mention the reputational damage it does to the country.The Human Resources Ministry must put an end to this.

Second, the employers’ request for foreign workers must match the nation’s manpower plan. Admittedly, there will at times be ad hoc requests given the vicissitudes of certain industries but the discipline that the manpower plan will impose on employers will be good for the country. Third, the new system must not burden the foreign workers unnecessarily. Non-governmental organisations such as Tenaganita have often been complaining about the current system being too skewed to the agencies and employers leaving the migrants fending for themselves when things go wrong. And they have a point. It is not too infrequently we hear of foreign workers not being paid their wages for months for one reason or another. The ministry must design a mechanism to put an end to such practices. Health and safety of migrant workers too are of concern. The Tanjung Bungah landslide in Penang, where 10 migrant workers died, has brought their families’ plight to the nation’s attention. Whenever an incident such as this happens workers are pushed from subcontractors to the contractors in their quest for justice. This should never be the case. Workers — be they migrants or locals — deserve justice.

The Human Resources Ministry says it is planning to introduce a new multi-tier levy system that will be imposed on employers who plan to hire more migrant workers so as to control the influx of foreigners into the country. It is hoped the employers will bear the levy and not pass them on to the workers as some employers do presently. This will be most unfortunate. Malaysia appears to be looking at Singapore’s best practice in hiring migrant workers, and quite rightly so. After all, our southern neighbour has the best system in the region as far as recruitment system and processes go. It works well there. It must be made to work well here too.

Malaysia appears to be looking at Singapore’s best practice in hiring migrant workers, and quite rightly so.