Malaysia is one of Asia's biggest employers of foreign labour. But recently, cases of deaths, abuse and forced labour have come to light. What is going on? Who is protecting these migrant workers?
In fact, the premier stressed, all workers should be paid wages that are commensurate
with their productivity and value added.
<p>"Nonetheless, what is fair and appropriate to employers and employees
must be dictated by prevailing market conditions and relevant commercial considerations.</p>
<p>"After all, companies and nations must be bound by the rules of the market
economy. Nations can and must establish sufficient protection against an unfettered
market such as adequate safety laws and fair workplace condition," he was
quoted as saying by Bernama.</p>
<p>Abdullah said this when opening the 2nd Union Network International Conference
for the Asia Pacific Region in Kuala Lumpur.</p>
<p>About 1,000 delegates from 200 trade union representatives in the Asia Pacific
region are attending the two-day conference.</p>
<p><b>Supply and demand</b></p>
<p>Abdullah said nations must also understand the law of supply and demand, which
means that nations and their workers must ensure that they can offer value to
the world’s market wages, welfare and well-being.</p>
<p>He said that to ensure decent work conditions and fair labour laws, the nation
and workers must find ways to offer greater value added by upgrading and improving
incentives for their performances.</p>
<p>"This is not only done by the government but also by business owners and
their workers, as all of them have a shared responsibility to improve themselves,"
he said.</p>
<p>The premier also commended the Union Network International (UNI) for its constructive
engagement with government organisations and hoped that the newly formed UNI
Asean Service Employees Trade Union Council would have a fruitful dialogue with
the relevant organisations on issues related to the liberalisation of the services
within Asean by 2010.</p>
<p>The liberalisation of the services would involve sectors such as information
communication technology (ICT), aviation, tourism and health care industries.</p>
<p>Abdullah congratulated UNI for working towards establishing a framework for
the protection and promotion of the rights of migrant workers in the Asia Pacific
region.</p>
<p><b>Market liberalisation</b></p>
<p>He said with the market liberalisation, they could expect more cross border
movement of labour and labour-related issues.</p>
<p>Abdullah said governments and workers alike had to adapt to a rapidly changing
world as the liberalisation of markets and sectors, as agreed under the World
Trade Organisation (WTO) and Asean, had had great implications on how work and
skills were valued.</p>
<p>"Due to the free movement of investment, work that involves skills will
be under the greatest of pressure, whereas work that requires specialised skills
will be prized and rewarded," he said.</p>
<p>He said minimal skilled work would continue to move to countries that had the
lowest cost of labour. "This is the reality faced by many developing countries
and their people today.”</p>
<p><i>Source: http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/71707</i>
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