By Peter John Jaban,
Human Rights Advocate
There has been public outcry against the hiring of more
foreign workers in Malaysia; so much so, that Putrajaya was forced into an
embarrassing U-turn on their proposal to bring in 1.5million migrant workers
from Bangladesh.
Yet Land Development Minister James Jemut Masing still
wants to disregard public opinion and Putrajaya and continue to bring them into
Sarawak. His rationale is that: “We need
foreign workers”.
However, this begs the question: who is we? Is Dr Masing
referring to the people of Sarawak, or to the small handful of plantation
owners with whom a number of State Government ministers are alleged to have
links?
Since the local people, in all other respects considered
among the most welcoming people on earth, do not seem to want them, then perhaps
it is the former rather than the latter.
Dr Masing states that the plantation sector already
employs 78% overseas workers, a clear admission that the sector is doing very
little to uplift the rural residents in any way whatsoever, providing minimal employment
prospects while being implicated in the widespread loss of their ancestral
lands.
His rationale is that Sarawak workers are unwilling to do
jobs that are ‘dirty, difficult and dangerous’ and therefore the plantation
sector stands to lose RM 1 billion each year in unharvested fruit. This is the heart of the issue – it all comes
down to money.
Plantation companies want to maximize already sizeable
profits by reducing employment costs and, in time-honoured tradition, this can
be achieved by using cheap overseas labour. In fact, there are numerous reports
of Indonesian workers being lured to Sarawak by promises of salaries in the
range of RM2,000 per month for driving work who arrive to find themselves
laboring up to 12 hours a day for a minimum wage of RM800 per month or even
less.
Is it surprising that local workers do not want the same
treatment? Is it ridiculous for them to expect a living wage and reasonable
working hours?
With RM1 billion of uncollected fruit, is it not
acceptable to expect plantation companies to distribute some of their potential
profits throughout some of the communities that they are imposed on?
That would be rural development. It is this mentality of
‘profits at any price’ that has seen Malaysia on the lowest rung of the human
trafficking ladder. Sarawak itself has
been exposed as hiring slave labour from the North Korean dictatorship to work
in the coal mines here, the site of the tragic 2014 explosion in which up to 9
miners lost their lives.
No one out of
choice would subject themselves to such unsafe working conditions if they were
not forced to, especially not for a minimum wage. If the Minister wants
Sarawakians to agree to do challenging work, then he must consider driving the
plantation companies to increase workers’ salaries and improve working
conditions, and until the access to a cheaper and more compliant workforce is
cut off, this will never happen.
The fundamental purpose of government is to uplift the
standard of living of their citizens as a whole, stimulating business so that
it can provide a better life for the populace.
If only half of that equation is addressed, then the work of Rural
Development must be deemed a failure.
The reality is that no one is entirely clear how many
foreign workers are currently in Sarawak. James Masing puts the figure of
documented workers in the plantation sector at 78% of 103,000, which is
80,340. But this figure is 15% above the
figure of 69,666 as of 30 September 2015 given by Masir Kujat, then Deputy Home
Affairs Minister, for documented workers in the plantation sector in answer to
a parliamentary question by YB Chong Chieng Jien.
In fact, it seems that this figure is in all likelihood
far higher as plantation companies persist in employing undocumented labour, as
proven by the numerous reports of arrests of so-called illegal immigrants on
plantation sites.
Even the Consul General of the Republic of Indonesia in
Kuching Jahar Gultom declared in news reports in November 2015 that an
estimated 400,000 documented and undocumented Indonesians are currently
residing in Sarawak, a figure based on the assumption that for every one
documented Indonesian, two would be undocumented.
He put the figure
of Indonesian citizens alone working in the plantation sector at closer to
130,000, far above Dr Masing’s figure of 80,000. It seems that there are few
controls on the influx as it is.
It would appear that the current system of controls on
migrant labour is woefully inadequate.
The State Secretary and Immigration Department of Sarawak are able to
circumvent the controls of the State Labour Department on overseas workers, the
department tasked with looking after workers’ welfare in Sarawak, and do so on
a regular basis.
Many workers, for example, are currently brought in on
social visit passes or temporary employment visas at the direct request of the
State Secretary. This is why Sarawakians
can see such huge numbers of Indian workers at coffee shops, waiting tables.
This is why the Sarawak State Government has agreed to do
business with North Korea, one of the most corrupt regimes on earth, against
the advice of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Slavery. The Rural
Development Minister’s assurances that the workers will be brought in on a
case-by-case basis is presumably meant to be comforting for the citizens of
Sarawak.
However, this leaves the whole process open to the most
appalling abuses. If there are no criteria for assessment of need and no
standard operating procedure, then who will be making the decision in each case
and on what basis? Will it simply be up to the Minister’s discretion? It seems
that, once again, access to foreign workers could be based not on what Sarawak
needs but on who the plantation owner knows.
Therefore, until the State Government plugs the gaps in
its current immigration procedures and follows its own procedural safeguards,
Sarawakians will not feel safe with the number of overseas workers allowed in.
Until the State Government decide to make plantation
companies uplift the local rural workers by increasing wages or improving
working conditions and rural infrastructure in return for their licenses to
make money, then genuine rural development will not occur.
Until the State
Government decide to consider the most deprived members of Sarawak society as
equally deserving with the most privileged, the plantation sector will continue
to be seen as the bane of the rural economy rather than the saviour.
Until the State
Government decide to safeguard the future of Sarawak as a whole rather than
just one industry, there will still be protests against them. The State
Government must help the people of Sarawak, not just replace them. March 25,
2016
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