Kula: Abolishment won’t affect locals
KULIM: Local employees will not be affected by the abolition of the Workmen’s Compensation Act 1952, said Human Resources Minister M. Kulasegaran.
He said abolition of the law would not affect local workers.
“I’ll make sure local workers will not get less (than what they are earning now). I will work to ensure that they earn more,” he said during a working visit to the Kulim Advanced Technology Training Centre (Adtec) here yesterday.
He said the abolition of the act was to safeguard the welfare of foreign workers in terms of insurance coverage, as well as to show that the government did not discriminate against them.
The move, he said, was in line with the Equality of Treatment (Accident Compensation) Convention 1925 (No. 19) and the Conference committee on the Application of Standards under the International Labour Organisation.
Kulasegaran said unlike local workers, their foreign counterparts were not protected under the Social Security Organisation (Socso) and the government could take action against employers who did not subscribe for their employees.
“For instance, recently representatives from the Japanese government met me and requested for our people to work there because their population is getting older.
“So, we must make sure our people who go there (Japan) to work are covered by (a form of ) insurance.
“We don’t want an incident like in Bukit Kukus to happen where it involved many foreign workers. Those killed got nothing (compensation), which is not fair,” he said referring to the landslide at Bukit Kukus, Penang, on October that killed nine people.
On his visit to Adtec, Kulasegaran said efforts should be made to promote the centre to get more youth to take up technical and vocational education and training (TVET).
He said the marketability of TVET graduates was high and the public stigma towards vocational graduates had changed.