A MAJOR public hospital cleaners’ union is hopeful its demand to be considered permanent civil service staff will be met, following a meeting with Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin in Putrajaya today.

Some 30 members from the National Union of Workers in Hospital Support and Allied Services (NUWHSAS) handed a memorandum to Khairy, detailing their wages and the “modern-day slavery” they say they were subject to by the private contractors who hired them.

NUHWHSAS submitted three requests: abolish the contract system and absorb the cleaners as full time civil servants, give them Covid-19 allowances and stop harassment of the union.

Union president Roziah Mohammed Hashim said the group felt hopeful there would be changes after meeting Khairy.

This is first time a health minister has met the union since contract cleaners first highlighted their problems five years ago.

“We spoke to him in his office and we hope there will be some changes soon as we have been struggling,” Roziah said in a press conference.

She was part of the convoy that travelled 530km from the Bukit Mertajam Hospital in Penang to Putrajaya where they wanted to personally tell Khairy their problems. Their journey, which started on Saturday, took four days – with breaks at rest and service stops - to engage the public on their plight.

Roziah, however, said there were many obstacles before they arrived in Putrajaya.

“Every time we wanted to enter a hospital to meet the cleaners, we were stopped by hospital supervisors and the police,” she said.

“The closer we got to Putrajaya, the more the number of police personnel at the hospitals.”

Khairy, who also briefly attended the press conference, said he will call a meeting with the company who hired the cleaners to hear its side of the story.

“These cleaners are also front-liners who played a big role during the pandemic, so I will definitely look into this matter,” he said.

In an earlier interview with The Malaysian Insight, Roziah said the union’s 50,000 members want to be treated as permanent civil servants.

The contract system was introduced on February 1, 1997, and public hospital cleaners have been paid minimum wage ever since.

Wages were set by a National Wage Council through a collective agreement and later by the government under the Minimum Wage Order 2012, which came into force in 2013.

The current minimum wage is RM1,200.

Prior to the contract system, cleaners were eligible for the government pension scheme and could apply for government loans, Roziah added. – February 8, 2022.