THE human resources minister should voice out issues affecting workers just as he raises issues affecting the Indian community, said the National Union of the Bank Employees (Nube) today.

M. Saravanan is accused of remaining silent on issues affecting workers despite the union raising them repeatedly with him.

Nube general-secretary J. Solomon said Saravanan, however, has been quick to raise his voice on issues affecting Indians, citing the latest issue of the Thaipusam holiday in Kedah.

“He jumped immediately to attack the Kedah menteri besar for not gazetting a holiday for the festival.

“Saravanan also accused him (Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor) of being arrogant for not consulting the MIC before making this decision.

“While he has the locus standi to champion the issue being the deputy president of MIC, his reason saying that the party will be affected if future elections smacks of just one thing – that only politics matter for this minister. This is appalling indeed,” Solomon said in a statement.

Nube has been appealing to Saravanan since November 12, 2020 to stop the arbitrary outsourcing of jobs and anti-union activities of an international bank, which resulted in the retrenchment of lower-income workers.

“We have even sent several reminders. Unfortunately, he has remained silent about it and refuses to respond to Nube and did not exercise his authority which is in the collective agreement to stop such abuses by the bank.”

The unionist said Saravanan even ignored a letter from Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin on December 16 to act on the complaint.

“We, too, reminded him of the prime minister’s directive. But Saravanan has refused to respond to Nube till now. We did not ask him to do us a favour but carry out his fiduciary duties.”

Solomon said Saravanan’s failure to act in support of the workers could result in them “hating the government”.

“The utter hypocrisy and arrogance of Saravanan will definitely not help the government in the next election if he continues to treat workers’ grouses selectively.”

In recent days, Saravanan had criticised Kedah for cancelling its special public holiday for Thaipusam which falls next Thursday.

The PAS-ruled state decided to forgo the public holiday on grounds of the movement-control order. – January 22, 2021.