MALAYSIA: Textile and garment workers protest for minimum wage
BharatTextile.com (subscription), India
KUALALUMPUR: About 30,000 workers stated a nationwide protest on Monday to demand RM900 monthly mimimum wage for private sector employees.
Basic wages of plantation, textile and garment and hotel workers in Malaysia is below RM400 a month.
Malaysia’s trade unions demonstrated at 13 locations throughout the country to show the government that the issue is indeed serious
G. Rajasekaran, Secretary General of the Malaysian Trades Union Congress, said the unions expected 50,000 workers to participate in the protest.
500 workers demonstrated near the office of the Employees Provident Fund.
The demonstrations followed a memorandum of demands that was sent to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi a week ago.
Mr. Rajasekaran said that the Ministry of Human Resources will set up councils to review low wages in certain sectors but that is not enough. After 50 years of independence the wages are still at the poverty line.
The demand for a minimum wage law is a 10-year battle. The government says they will set up councils for the hotel and security guard sectors. The minimum wage issue concerns about seven million workers. There are plantation, garment, textile workers who also need to be considered while setting up councils.
“We need a law for the minimum wage,” Rajasekaran said.
