Support and positive acceptance from the Bar Council towards the government’s firm stance on employers and agents regarding the issue of hiring foreign workers indicate that the position is correct and justified.

Minister of Human Resources Steven Sim stated that the ministry’s position is clear, emphasizing that every foreign worker brought into Malaysia must be paid a salary after signing a service contract with the employer and employment agent.

He explained that this obligation is based on the provisions under the Employment Act 1955 and also takes into account the decisions of several court judgments related to wage issues in the past.

“Our stance is clear: if you want to bring in foreign workers to Malaysia, there must be work. If there is no job, they cannot be brought in… but if they are brought in because there is work, but then the work cannot be done for certain reasons, then it is also mandatory to pay the salary from the time they (workers) are brought in.

“This is important to ensure that no one (agent) misuses (the hiring quota) and allows workers to stay in dormitories for months without being paid, and it is also to ensure that employers do not arbitrarily apply for and bring in foreign workers to Malaysia,” he said.

Sim made these remarks to reporters after visiting the site of the Kesuma MADANI Program, which will be held in conjunction with the Thaipusam celebration next week at Batu Caves in Kuala Lumpur.

Yesterday, the Joint Chairman of the Committee on Migrants, Refugees, and Immigration Affairs of the Malaysian Bar Council, Datuk Seri M Ramachelvam, was reported to have praised Sim’s firmness in ensuring that cases of fraud involving foreigners brought in without available jobs do not recur.

Earlier, Sim had ordered an investigation into media revelations that the number of unemployed foreign workers in Malaysia has now exceeded 500,000.

Regarding the allegations that the Foreign Workers Medical Monitoring and Examination Agency (FOMEMA) has raised fees and the frequency of medical examinations for foreign workers without considering the stakeholders’ views, Sim said that the matter would be discussed with the Ministry of Health.

As for the Kesuma MADANI program, Sim mentioned that the Ministry of Human Resources (MOHR) would, for the first time, deploy 200 Kesuma Heroes volunteers to Batu Caves to assist the temple authorities in managing logistics during the Thaipusam celebration on January 25.

Furthermore, MOHR will open a booth at the main program tent to provide job information and register the Indian community for technical courses required by the job market.

“This booth is established in collaboration with the Malaysia India Transformation Unit (MITRA) because we also want many Indian housewives to register with the Housewives Social Security Scheme (SKSSR) implemented by the Social Security Organization (Perkeso).

“Considering the estimated one million visitors and Hindu devotees during the celebration, we hope that perhaps half of them will register with SKSSR,” he said. – Bernama