Plantations in Sabah cannot live without foreign workers, says planters’ association
KOTA KINABALU: The plantation industry in Sabah cannot live without foreign workers, as up to 90 per cent of the workforce in estates are foreign labour.
East Malaysian Planters’ Association (EMPA) chairman Masri Pudin said the plantation industry relied heavily on foreign workers, majority of them were Indonesians from Sulawesi.
Masri, who is also the head of Plantation Business at Sawit Kinabalu Sdn Bhd, said locals in the oil palm sector mostly worked in palm oil mills.
In the case of Sawit Kinabalu, Masri said around half of the workers in plantation estates in the west coast were locals, whereas estates in the east coast, such as Sandakan, Tawau and Lahad Datu, employed up to 90 per cent foreign workers.
“You can’t live without foreign workers. That is the fact.”
Therefore, he said the plantation industry sees the decision to freeze recruitment of foreign workers with great concern as oil palm estates in Sabah had been experiencing a labour shortage of about 20 per cent.
He said it was common for plantation sectors to have an annual turnover of workers of about 20 per cent for the plantation sector, as a result of voluntary or involuntary termination of service.
Masri said workers might leave due to several reasons, such as expiry of their work contract, failing health tests or ill treatment by employers.
“If the government does not allow for replacement, the industry will die,” he said in a press conference here yesterday.
In addition, Masri said labour impact was anticipated to be overwhelming as fresh fruit bunch (FFB) production would start to peak up by the month of May 2016.
“Without an immediate and amicable solution, the palm oil industry in Sabah has the potential of losing a minimum 10 per cent of 2016’s harvest.
“At the price of crude palm oil (CPO) and palm kernel of RM2,300 and RM1,900 per metric tonne respectively, the worth of loss will be in the tune of RM1.8 billion.”
Masri said acute labour shortage could also lead to the vicious cycle of labour pinching and hence, the increasing number of workers turned illegal.
On a related note, Masri pointed out that encouraging locals to work in the plantation sector was easier to be said than done.
“Based on Sawit Kinabalu’s experience, we manage to employ between 80 to 90 per cent locals to work in our mills wherever the locations are, but they do not want to work in the estates.”
He said mill workers earned a monthly salary plus overtime pay, whereas harvesters, which were considered skilled workers, earned either daily pay or piece rate salary.
Masri said paying harvesters on a piece rate actually allowed them to earn more and promote their productivity.
In fact, he said hardworking harvesters could earn between RM2,000 and RM2,500 in 25 working days.
He added that Sawit Kinabalu provided duplex accommodation for the estate workers as well as free electricity and water supply.