PUTRAJAYA must raise the minimum wage if it wants Malaysians to take up jobs vacated by foreigners in the current economic crisis, said the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC).

At the same time, the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government should cut the salaries of members of Parliament (MPs) appointed to government-linked companies, said the private sector union federation.

MTUC secretary-general J. Solomon said Human Resources Minister M. Saravanan and the government are always targeting low-income workers while not addressing highly-paid top management officers and politicians who could save many jobs by having their salaries and wages cut.

“Why is he not proposing that during this crisis, the government set a ceiling instead of allowing interested parties to decide their own salary and bonuses?” he said.

Solomon made the call after Saravanan told Malaysians who had been retrenched to accept “any job even with low wages” as it was “better than having no job”.

MTUC has always pushed home the point that Malaysians do not want to take up low-skilled, dangerous, demeaning and difficult jobs because the pay is too low.

“Employers, aided by government policies, have managed to keep the wages for these jobs low so that they can reap high profits at the expense of these miserly-paid workers, who are mainly migrant labour,” Solomon said.

“The employers have taken advantage of the poor foreign workers who are at the mercy of Malaysian bosses for survival.”

The current minimum wage level of RM1,100 is too low and was based on the outdated poverty line income of RM980 per month,” Solomon said.

The threshold was recently revised to RM2,808 after a report by UN Special Rapporteur on poverty and human rights Philip Alston found that poverty levels in Malaysia were completely outdated and needed revision, he said.

“With this revision, the government owes it to the poor workers to revise the minimum wages urgently to make up for decades of abuse by paying unfair and low wages.

“We consider this as a debt the government owes to all those working in Malaysia with low wages. The current minimum wage should be converted to a living wage to reflect the actual cost of living”. – August 11, 2020.