THE Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) today accused M. Kulasegaran of breaking his word  to discuss with the National Labour Advisory Council (NLAC) the proposed amendments to the Industrial Relations Act (IRA).

It said the human resources minister has taken a very arrogant and militant-like approach in dealing with the MTUC’s complaint.

“He has refused to allow the National Labour Advisory Council (NLAC) to discuss and reach joint solutions on the proposed amendments to the Industrial Relations Act (IRA) before tabling them in Parliament,” MTUC said in a statement today.

MTUC said Kula had given his word at an NLAC meeting that the latter would be consulted on labour law changes. 

“He did not allow the NLAC to discuss and reach a joint solution to the amendments of the IRA hence his claim that his ministry had effectively engaged the MTUC and the Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF), the two main constituents of the NLAC is false and misleading,” it added.

The MTUC said it regretted Kula had conveniently forgotten his pledge to have NLAC and its technical committee deliberate over the proposed amendments and reach a consensus before the changes were submitted to parliament.

“Up until now, the minister has failed to answer MTUC’s simple question: how many of the NLAC meetings chaired by him or his officials had specifically discussed proposed amendments to the IRA, the Trade Unions Act and the Employment Act?”

MTUC said the minister has not responded to the union’s calls to make the minutes of the NLAC meetings public.

“By making public the minutes or at least providing the media access to them, the public can easily judge if indeed, ‘effective and meaningful’ consultations have been carried out by the ministry in accordance with C144 that the ministry refers to,” MTUC said.

It added that the NLAC is never used as an effective consultation forum for labour law reforms.

“MTUC’s stand is that the NLAC is never used as an effective forum of consultation on the labour law reforms as intended by C144. We also stand by our statement that the minister undermined the NLAC and unilaterally handed a set of bad laws to Parliament for approval on October 7 and 9.”

However, the Human Resources Ministry today said it was not required to obtain the agreement of the MTUC or the MEF to amend the Industrial Relations Act 1967 (Act 177).

In a statement today, it said the International Labour Organisation Convention No. 144 (C144) on Tripartite Consultation required only that the government had consultation with the employer and employee representatives.

Meanwhile, Sarawak MTUC had hailed the tabling of the amendments last week, adding that this will be a game changer to facilitate the development of more effective unions and a more robust industrial relations system. – October 20, 2019.