KUALA LUMPUR, June 22 — Despite strong calls from many quarters, including the MCA, the government announced today that it was shelving a minimum wage policy due to poor public feedback.
Human Resources deputy minister Datuk Maznah Mazlan told Parliament that the government had only received a total of 77 responses from the public since March this year.
“The ministry launched its blog on March 24 this year to obtain feedback from Malaysians on the proposal to introduce minimum wages.
“Until today, the ministry has only obtained 77 responses,” she said when replying to a question by Charles Santiago (DAP-Klang),
Maznah said that of the 77 responses, 70 or 91 per cent agreed with the proposal, about three per cent disagreed and 6 per cent were indifferent.
“The feedback is too small for us to implement the policy, especially in comparison with the over 11 million workers in the labour force nationwide.
“It is not representative of the number of workers,” she said.
She added that the ministry would continue with its blog to obtain more feedback as well as to organise a three-party workshop in mid-July this year involving workers’ associations, employers associations, academics and government agencies.
“Whatever feedback we obtain from the blog and the workshop will be used as input for the government’s consideration,” she said.
In a supplementary question, Charles slammed the ministry for deferring its decision to introduce minimum salaries for security personnel to 2011 although it was set to begin on July 1 this year.
“It is important for the nation. The government had decided to introduce the policy but suddenly, this was a retracted.
“This is like one step forward and three steps back. From what I have read from the news, I see that this shows that the government is afraid of the private sector, especially the security firms that have been urging the government not to introduce the policy,” he said.
Charles asked if the government had the “political will” to introduce minimum wages for the country, especially in view of the New Economic Model’s target of achieving a high-income status for the country.
In her response, Maznah said that the Cabinet had on January 13 this year instructed the ministry to study the proposal to introduce minimum wages.
“For your information, your accusation that we are frightened of the private sector and that we have no political will — this is just a perception typical of the opposition.
“The introduction of minimum wages involves many processes and many ministries. It involved the communication between the ministries and other important parties like the workers unions and other associations,” she said.
Maznah pointed out that a single policy could not be used for all sectors.
“We need to have a proper, detailed study, which would include making comparisons to other countries as well,” she said.
In another supplementary question, Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad (PAS-Kuala Selangor) asked Maznah for the ministry’s plans in improving the wages of the labour force.
“About 40 per cent of the labour force earn less than RM1,500 monthly and 75 per cent of them are the bumiputras from Sabah and Sarawak,” he said.
Maznah said that the 10th Malaysia Plan programmes provide ways and means to improve the welfare of the labour force.
“We are also looking into ways and means on how to lessen our dependence on foreign labour as well as how to improve the skilled workers force.
“Our target is to raise our 25 per cent of skilled workers in the workforce to at least 50 per cent,” she said.