Separate the wheat from the chaff …
EARLY this month, the owners or operators of the restaurants and coffee shops along North Yu Seng Road in Miri were ‘hot’ with officials from the Immigration Department for rounding up foreign workers, alleging that even those of them with valid working permits were not spared. As a result, business in the locality was apparently adversely affected.
These businessmen regularly pay for the renewal of their licences issued by the city council, so it was to that local authority that they turned to for help, hoping the Mayor would be kind enough to sort things out with the appropriate authorities.
The Mayor readily obliged.
Unfortunately, the offer of help from him was perceived by many observers, including the Malaysian Trade Union Congress (MTUC), as an act of siding with the food outfits and by implication affecting the smooth implementation of the government’s exercise to eliminate illegal foreign workers from the job market in Miri and other places.
The Mayor has denied all these allegations of bias and being under pressure from the eatery fraternity.
However, his statement in The Borneo Post of March 6 (not denied at the time of writing) was rather harsh on the manner the immigration officers and other officials carried out their duties on Monday and Tuesday, alleging to the effect that there should be guidelines and a code of conduct to be observed while screening the workers, that the officers were from Kuching, that the raids should not have been carried out along a tourist belt because that would scare away the visitors, and would create a bad image of Miri to outsiders.
Talking about scaring away tourists, my wife and I wanted to show a visiting couple from overseas something of the night life in Kuching and decided on a bistro where good musicians were performing. The place had been closed because, we found out later, it was allegedly frequented by the ‘illegals’. So, certain tourists would want to keep away from any joints known to be haunts of illegal immigrants. The clean-up at North Yu Seng Road would be good for the business community there, following the Kuching logic.
The statement purported to have been made by the Mayor would be understandable if there was pressure put on him to speak for the rate payers; unfortunately it had a negative implication and thus was grossly unfair to the officials of the Immigration and Labour Departments who carried out their duties on Monday and Tuesday according to the law and the policy. Both the law and policy are sensible and are intended for the good of the country, Sarawak included.
According to the state director of Immigration Datu Robert Lian, his department and other relevant agencies had been carrying out concerted operations under ‘Ops Bersepadu’ to rid the nation of illegal workers. His advice to the employers in Sarawak, in this case the restaurants and the coffee shop operators in Miri, is for them to abide by the rules … If they have valid working permits, their employees would never have been rounded up. He reminded the employers whose workers had been rounded up, but whose permits are valid and but kept safe by their employers, that they should not worry. They should come forward and ascertain the validity of the passes of their employees.
What better advice is there than that given above? The MTUC felt insulted as much as I did when the chairman of the Miri Coffee Shops Association said that “many local workers just leave their jobs without informing the employer”. That is a rash stereotyping. These may be the cases known to him but there are hundreds of other Sarawakian workers who stay on their jobs for a long time and, except for a few, they inform their employers whenever they want to leave.
The best bet for local employers wishing to retain Sarawakian workers is to pay them well, contribute to their provident fund, register them with Socso, cover them with the necessary insurance, provide them with decent living quarters, and create conducive working conditions for them.
I have known of cases of workers who had not been paid their share of EPF contribution or registered with Socso. In one case that was reported to me, the worker was sacked the next day. Other workers in the same company were scared to complain for fear of being dismissed from their jobs too.
I have also known of a few cases of injuries and even deaths by accident in the timber camps where the workers had not been insured, not even paid under the Workmen’s Compensation scheme.
These may be isolated cases and I shouldn’t generalise. I know that there are many good employers who abide by the law in terms of EPF contribution or registration with Socso and who provide them with decent quarters.
My guess is that real cases of deliberate neglect of workers’ welfare have something to do with Sarawakians unwilling to work for employers who think in terms only of dollars and cents and consider human needs as of secondary importance. They prefer foreign workers because these are easier to manage. They don’t complain about ill treatment; they need the money to send home. They cannot leave their jobs easily because their passports are being kept by the bosses under lock and key.
This campaign to rid Sarawak of illegal foreign workers in the state and impose new conditions of foreign workers needs the support and cooperation of all citizens. I believe that the consulate of Indonesia or agency dealing with workers from the Philippines would be happy to help process applications for jobs in this country if they know that their citizens will be better treated by their employers in this country. Malaysia would also expect her citizens working in other countries to be similarly treated like humans.
The problem of labour shortage in the plantations and other industries will remain a problem unless and until the employers recruit and train local workers. There may not be enough locals around at the moment; in that case, there is every justification, indeed necessity, to recruit the foreigners on new terms and conditions acceptable to the employer and the employee.
We must start with a clean slate. Hence the exercise to separate the legal from the illegal workers in the country to begin with.
That is my take of the Ops Bersepadu anyway.
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