A FREELANCE writer friend who had been living and working his way through the big bad city of Kuala Lumpur came back to Kuching recently for a respite from what he described as hard living due to uncertain pay cheques.
As a freelance writer who does everything from editing to writing reports, promotional materials, features and profiles for companies, this fellow has been making a decent living in Kuala Lumpur for the past 20 years.
The reason he left a corporate advertising company some 30 years ago was because this company had failed to pay his wages for half a year. This also happened to be in the midst of the 1985 to 1986 recession, when corporate firms were hard hit and folding.
At the same time, he saw it as an opportunity to offer his skills and services to other corporate companies looking for more reasonable and cheaper alternatives in promotions and advertising as a freelancer.
Things had been going pretty well for him, albeit the realities of being a freelancer, which means you have to be persistent and thick-skinned when it came to chasing after slow paymasters for jobs done.
It has not been easy, but many of these ‘slow paymasters’ eventually paid up within three months.
Sometime at the end of last year, he took up a “big job” as he put it, in which he had to dedicate six months and forgo other job offers. The entire scope of work that he was tasked with would have pulled him a five figure pay cheque when completed.
The job was completed in April and based on the service contract he signed, he would have received his final payment (40 per cent up front and 60 per cent upon completion) in May.
The job done was accepted by the company and was already publicly put to use as promotional material since May. Frustratingly, until today, his final payment has yet to come through.
Each phone call to the company would receive the same answer: “Yes, yes, we are processing the payment for you” or “Yes, we will call you when we have the cheque signed”.
His trip back to Kuching was to essentially escape the high cost of living in Kuala Lumpur while he worked on other freelance assignments from his family home here and pursued his “thick-skinned chasing for payment”. “Six months. Six months is what I gave them! If I don’t see a cheque six months from May, I’ll sue them. They’ve already breached the contract!” he declared and is currently seeking legal counsel from an old lawyer friend.
Bad paymasters exist all around, be it in the form of bad paymasters to staff, or bad paymasters to those who supply services and goods.
Another old friend was recently not paid for five months. The small company he still works for used “economic slowdown” as the excuse.
The company is not doing too bad by the way in spite of the economy, if you are curious to know. It just boils down to poor management and misguided priorities. While the lower paid clerical staff left after not having received their pay for two months, this fellow stuck on just to help keep the company running.
“Why are you so silly?” we asked. “Every day you go to work, you use up your own money to buy minyak, you pay to makan outside and even use your own money for office expenses and you still receive nothing. Not even peanuts or at least half your pay!”
“Haiyah, my boss my kawan bah … some more, I have to help jaga the company.”
“Well a real kawan would not let another kawan suffer without pay! Look at your boss, jetsetting to KL, Indonesia, here and there, but did he ask you if your family had food on the table?”
Nope, not at all.
We, his real friends, were just about to lodge a report to the relevant authorities and the EPF, when he finally got a fraction of his pay owed for over four months. A small fraction, mind you. Not even half of what is owed to him and there is just no telling when he would get the rest of his pay.
The real friends are keeping tabs, and woe be to his ‘boss friend’, should this fellow’s pay not come through consistently after this, for we can always check on our friend’s EPF contributions and make him take action from there on.
The problem with us Malaysians is that we are just too nice. If we work for people we regard as friends, we have a tendency to let them step all over us.
We let things go and move on, sometimes just all too easily and suffer in silence over bank loans not paid and having to tighten our belts, as they say.
As employees, we ‘make do’ by going on our own austerity drives – cutting down on expenses in every way that we can, and dig deep into our savings to cover financial obligations, while silently praying that we will receive our pay cheque soon and politely asking when the cheque will be ready.
Well, of course, there is nothing wrong with going on a tight budget and cutting down expenses. It just makes us all the more appreciative of the simple things in life, and it does make us wiser in our spendings.
It becomes even harder when the economy takes a dive, prices of essential goods go up and we have to tighten our belts even further up the loop. ‘Ikat perut’ is what they call it here, literally translated as tie stomach.
But unlike our unpaid counterparts in more developed countries, very few of us would resort to legal action, lodging reports or making a lot of noise when not paid what is due to us.
Do we have laws that protect us? Yes, of course we do, as long as we are legally employed or contracted for a job and the terms of salary or payment are stipulated, we can take action.
Eye was informed that those earning a salary of over RM5,000 can sue while those earning less, can seek counsel from the Labour Department, while those who earn more or have their contracts breached, can take the matter up in court. It may take a while to go through the processes, and we will need to stick to our self-imposed austerity drives while we seek compensation or greener pastures, but it will at least not be in vain.
But what about freelancers who have done work in good faith and do not have any binding contract, other than just emails or text messages to indicate that there is some sort of transaction taking place?
This is where they would have to be thick skinned as the freelance writer said and be persistent in demanding what is due. Also ensure there is a formal agreement from the company that hires you for your services.
Comments can reach the writer via [email protected].