Productivity-linked wage system isn’t going to bring workers home
29 September 2018 Print page
Human Resources Minister M Kulasegaran recently issued a statement about reactivating the productivity-linked wage system (PLWS) to bring back Malaysian workers from abroad. Kulasegaran, having failed in the implementation of minimum wage and having made a series of U-turns on other labour matters, is giving the impression that he does not know what he is talking about.
The productivity question in Malaysia has been the magic wand used by employers for years to deny workers in the private sector decent and acceptable wages. Today, even employers are not willing to advance this argument simply because productivity has increased among workers. What is more, the raking in of huge profits by them is a telltale sign that productivity is no longer an issue among employers and workers. Minimum wage in the country is used merely to address the grievances of labour groups in an environment where trade union rights and collective bargaining have been severely restricted by the state through laws and other measures.
Thousands of Malaysian workers have left the country not because they are not productive or have low skills, but because of discrimination and low wages. So I don’t understand how the PLWS is going to provide incentives to workers to come back to the country.
What is needed in the so-called new Malaysia is the presence of a non-discriminatory environment where workers’ skills are duly recognised and monetarily rewarded. I don’t see how the PLWS is going to bring back workers on the basis of productivity. Perhaps Kulasegaran could take some time off to study the labour system in the country before shooting off his mouth on archaic and outmoded ideas and concepts that do not have any real meaning.
For him to justify the deplorable increase of RM50 in minimum wage tells us much about him and his ministry’s efforts to provide the necessary material rewards and confidence to workers in the private sector. He can’t just turn around and say that the government has no money to pay when minimum wage does not entail payment to employees in the public sector.
Kulasegaran should be an effective human resources minister with an independent and open mind. He should not uncritically or blindly read the speeches prepared by civil servants who are still sticking to old and archaic ways of doing things.
He has been in office for more than 100 days, but I have yet to see him articulate on policy matters, the removal of anti-labour legislation, the provision of balanced employment, ethnically-balanced intakes in government-owned skill centres and so on. Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad might be right after all in his recent remark that his Cabinet members are not up to scratch.
P Ramasamy is Penang deputy chief minister II.
Source : https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/2018/09/28/productivity-linked-wage-system-isnt-going-to-bring-workers-home/