WE refer to the Malaysian Employers’ Federation (MEF) statement released today.

We have no problems if MEF wants to raise employers concerns on increasing the minimum wage.  We don’t need to be reminded that business was, is and forever will be challenging.

What we are extremely annoyed at is the thinly veiled attempt to paint the minimum wage increase as for the benefit foreign workers instead of locals.

Blaming  the recruitment system and forced labour in some of these foreign workers’ home countries is a classic case of shooting the messenger.  

It is employers in Malaysia that created the demand, leading to 30% of workers are foreign. 

If there is no demand, there will not be any supply and there will be no exploitation.

It is again fear mongering to quote retrenchment figures of the media industry. The retrenchment  in the media has nothing do with minimum wage but a consequences of failure to adapt to changing technological landscape. None of those retrenched are at minimum wage. 

MEF also refuses to accept that it is low wages that lead to low productivity as employers will not invest in productivity enhancing technology as long as there is an abundance of cheap foreign labour.  It even blamed a proposed increased overtime threshold as the cause of low productivity.

We are pleased to note that MEF now acknowledges the need for businesses to conform to international labour standards. Why then it does it so strongly object to the amendments to the Industrial Relations Act that paved the way to Convention 87? Isn’t that being manipulative?

Again, we hope MEF can come up with a proactive response. – December 27, 2019.

* Andrew Lo, Mohd Shafie, and Gopala Krishnan read The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.