Bantah TPPA: Labour chapter opens our industrial court system to abuse
KUALA LUMPUR: The labour chapter under the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) will leave Malaysia’s industrial court system open to abuse, said Bantah TPPA.
Parti Sosialis Malaysia treasurer and Bantah TPPA coordinator Sivarajan Arumugam said certain provisions have been inserted into the labour chapter, for example Article 19.12, which allows investors to take the legal process out of the country.
“TPPA asks for a labour council and a labour consultation platform. This is separate, meaning that any investor that comes to Malaysia and employs local workers, it wants a separate labour consultation platform. And, under this platform, let’s say the investor and the workers or the union have a dispute, they can form a labour council and have labour consultation. Malaysia will be bound to do it,” he told reporters on Friday.
“We already have a labour court system. We have a very long established industrial court system. Does this mean that investors don’t have to go to our industrial court?
“They can ask the government, according to the TPPA, to form a separate consulting platform. We are bound by that.
“The worst thing after this is that if the consulting parties fail to resolve the matter no later than 60 days after the date of receipt, the investing party can request for the establishment of a panel under Article 28.7 in the dispute settlement chapter. The ISDS (investorstate dispute settlement) chapter,” Sivarajan said.
According to him, investors can avoid going to the local industrial court by requesting for labour consultation and if the consultation fails to resolve the dispute, the investor can directly refer the case to the international arbitration centre, which undermines Malaysia’s industrial court system.
“What is going to happen to our labour court system? This is very dangerous. While the labour chapter has been hailed for taking care of our labour rights, inside it, this is what you have. You have the opportunity for investors or employers to bypass our legal system, our industrial court system and judges, and directly take the matter to the international court,” he added.
Sivarajan said the International Labour Organisation Convention can be complied with even without the TPPA.
“Our contention has always been that Malaysia, without TPPA, can at any time comply with the convention. Malaysia has complied with the ILO Convention for a long time. It has very good aspects such as right to organise, right to minimum wage, right to strike. A lot of labour standards will be updated through this convention.
“The Human Resource Ministry still can comply with this convention without the TPPA. It is misleading for the International Trade and Industry Ministry to say that with TPPA, now your labour rights can be updated.”
Meanwhile, Malaysian Council for Tobacco Control (MCTC) president Dr Molly Cheah said the TPPA will make it difficult for Malaysia to regulate the use of tobacco in the country.
“Malaysia had tabled a total carveout for tobacco from the TPPA. In other words, this trade agreement does not apply to tobacco because it does affect the tobacco control activities of the government. Unfortunately, at the last part of the negotiations, in Atlanta in October, we found that the American voice prevailed. As you know, the American voice is dictated mainly by the tobacco industry.
“Malaysia lost that proposal. In its place, it mentioned in the ISDS investment chapter, there is an exemption for tobacco control activities but it is not clear how that is going to be done, because there is a provision there that says the government can elect to deny the industry of suing or not suing.
“What happens if you have a weak government? You then allow the tobacco industry to force its case on to you. There are at least seven to nine chapters in the TPPA that actually affect tobacco control. We are still studying the impact,” she said.
Cheah cited an example, whereby it is unclear whether there is exemption for tobacco under regulatory coherence. If there is no exemption, Malaysia would not be able to table any tobacco control act and it would be very difficult for the government to regulate the use of tobacco in this country.
Bantah TPPA chairman Mohd Nizam Mahshar said out of the concerns it had outlined before the final text was made public, 80% of its concerns turned out to be accurate while new concerns have cropped up in the final text.
“We call on the government to finalise and release the Cost-Benefit Analysis and National Interest Analysis as soon as possible so that an informed analysis or study can be done in reference to the final document to ensure that we do not make the wrong decision for our country’s future,” he said.