Klang MP Charles Santiago from the DAP said workers who are outsourced and subcontracted, which is currently legal only in the plantation sector but practised widely in factories across sectors, do not have security of tenure nor social protections like the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) and Socso.
“Subcontracting and outsourcing sets a dangerous precedent,” Santiago told a press briefing here.
“It makes job insecurity prominent. They don’t get EPF or Socso. It further entrenches poverty,” the opposition MP added.
He said outsourcing of office workers is also being practised in the services sector in Malaysia, like in hotels and supermarkets.
The TPP side agreement also extends the right to strike to more workers, which is currently denied to those working in essential services like banks, public services and electrics and electronics, but Santiago said the minister can still prevent strikes by referring the case to industrial court for arbitration.
“It doesn’t bring about real changes to quality of life,” Santiago said of the agreement.
US-based fair labour group Verite reported last year that almost a third of about 350,000 workers in Malaysia’s electronics industry faced modern-day slavery conditions like debt bondage.
Santiago, acknowledged, however, that the TPP side agreement on labour between Malaysia and the US contained some provisions that protect foreign workers’ rights, such as making it illegal for an employer to withhold a worker’s passport and requiring employers to pay government levies for foreign workers, instead of the current practice where the worker pays the levies.
“Migrant workers get a good deal,” he said.
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