Asia Times: Migrant workers get short end of the stick



	July 22, 1999	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

Migrant workers get short end of the stick
By R. Mageswary

KUALA LUMPUR - One minute Malaysia's migrant workersare welcomed with open arms and in the next breath, they are toldto get out of the country, often in not-so-polite terms.

Whether dismissed in manner polite or pointed, these workers are finding out that difficulttimes are making them vulnerable to exploitation, and that only uncertainty seems certain in the months ahead.

The government has alternated between embracing new sources of labor and expelling them. In March of this year the government said financial difficulties owing to Asia's economic crisis made it difficult to continue taking in foreign workers. Not least, it said the earnings repatriated by the workers to their home countries added a further strain to the economy.

Then in April, the government changed its tune. The government announced it would not hesitate to engage foreign workers to work in ports if Malaysians were not willing to do the job. To encourage such a promotion of labor, it lifted the freeze on the hiring of foreign workers. April was also the government-set deadline for employers hiring foreign workers to renew their employees' work permits and pay a levy for the employment of foreigners. This date was later postponed to mid-July and has now been extended to August 15.

The shifting policies in recent months, together with employers' reluctance to pay the levy, has meant continued retrenchment for many workers, often without proper benefits. With estimates of migrant workers in Malaysia reaching nearly 2.2 million, half of them undocumented, the problem of migrant workers speaks on a larger scale.

An employer's failure to pay the levy makes the migrant worker in question an illegal, overstaying foreigner. The price of the levy has made this an attractive option to many employers. In the Immigration Department's foreign workers division, Jamil Ariffin said the amount of levy due from 270 employers reached 4.7 million ringgit ($1.23 million).

Small wonder that employers are seeking the easy way out, retrenching foreignworkers, in some cases without settling their salaries. ''We receive eight complaints of retrenchments a day,'' said Irene Fernandez of Tenaganita, a non-government organization that deals with problems faced by migrant workers in the country.

Foreign workers were once welcomed as precious labor needed by a labor-short economy to build its ambitious infrastructure projects, from expressways to skyscrapers to airports. But the fortunes of migrants were reversed - and the welcome mat retracted - when Asia's crisis undercut once-booming sectors like real estate and construction and put in peril livlihood of many migrant workers the government now wants to send home.

One worker who was recently put out of work is Naseem. He is a shy young Bangladeshi boy who was working in a factory in Kajang, 30 kilometers away from the federal capital of Kuala Lumpur. ''I was earning about 500 ringgit ($130) a month. I don't have any savings and was sacked without any notice,'' he reported. Naseem's employer has to pay 350 ringgit ($92) per year in levy. Once a foreign worker is laid off and his work permit cancelled, he becomes an illegal worker who faces deportation. But his problems do not stop there.

According to Fernandez, employers who want to retrench theirworkers to avoid paying the levy will often justify this move bylodging a false police report stating their employees have runaway. Showing even more contemptible behavior, some employers forge false medical reports saying their workers are HIV-positive, activists say. Foreign workers with infectiousdiseases are immediately deported from Malaysia.

''We have a few cases where the workers who are sent backdiscover they are perfectly healthy. In some bizarre cases, maleworkers get medical reports stating they are pregnant,'' lamentedFernandez.

Unlike Naseem, 29-year-old Syed Ahmad's employer has agreed torenew his work permit. A migrant from Pakistan, Naseem has been in Malaysia for the last eight years. He works from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day to earn 900 ringgit($237) a month and shares a small house with 13 friends.

''The working conditions are bad and I am not even given medicalleave. I am also not allowed to go to a panel doctor but have tofork out money to see one,'' said Ahmad. He adds that he is often harassed by policemen for failing to show his passport, which is held by his employers, even though Section26 of the Immigration Act states that it is illegal for any person other than the owner to hold a passport.

Retrenched workers often do not get what they are due, includingthe contributions they made from their salaries while employed inMalaysia to the Employers' Provident Fund (EPF). Foreign workers who leave the country are told to collect their money in their respective countries, but often never get the money back.

''When I was in Bangladesh, two people came to me with lettersfrom the EPF written in Malay. They did not understand a word ofwhat was stated in the letter and complained that they have yet toreceive their money,'' recalled Fernandez.

In fact, she says that the employers state their names as thebeneficiaries to the EPF. Such is the case with Ahmad, whoseemployer has listed his own name as the beneficiary of hiscontributions to the fund. ''What can we do as we are at the mercy of the employers? Weare also scared to deal with the authorities, because we know thatthey will only listen to the employers,'' Ahmad added.

Activists in Malaysia say the situation is not helped by thefact that there is no one coordinating body handling issuespertaining to migrant workers, though the country relied on themgreatly in the boom years. There is no clear jurisdiction of authority between the HomeMinistry, Human Resources Ministry, Immigration Department and theLabor Department, they add.

''Foreign workers are often kicked around like a football fromone department to the other,'' admitted a social worker who declinedto be named.

Fernandez recently started a dialogue session with theImmigration Department, urging them to look into the trickeryplayed by employers who rather get rid of their workers than payhuge sums of money in levies. ''We have gotten a positive response from them. This is a start,'' she claimed. ''The current system paralyzes migrant workers in their quest for justice. We are eliminating people and I think this approach is selfish, racist and discriminatory."

(Inter Press Service)

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