Employers Hesitant to Join Temporary Accommodation Programme

According to the Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) and the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM), many employers are hesitant to sign up for the temporary accommodation programme to house foreign workers in hotels, as per Workers' Minimum Standards of Housing and Amenities Act 1990 (Act 446).

They said that the programme would place a substantial financial burden on employers who were already experiencing cash flow issues related to the pandemic. 

Under the government programme, foreign workers would be temporarily accommodated in hotels as a method to stop the spread of COVID-19. According to The Straits Times, workplace clusters are a major source of COVID-19 infections in Malaysia.

Employers will bear all the related transportation and accommodation costs at the hotels and centralised labour quarters certified by the Labour Department.

The Ministry of Human Resources says that the programme will cost employers RM270 per worker for a month:

• RM200 for rental fee,
• RM20 for utilities,
• RM50 for transportation.

The temporary accommodation initiative aims to temporarily house foreign workers in hotels as per Act 446. 

The president of FMM, Soh Thian Lai said the choice to use the temporary accommodation should be voluntary and not mandated on companies. He added the housing cost per employee, inclusive of utilities and transportation cost, should be decided by the employers and not the ministry. 

The executive director of MEF, Shamsuddin Bardan stated that the programme would also cause issues for employers to manage their employees. He said that it would be tough to transport migrant workers from the hotels to the respective workplaces, and the need to commute daily would also cause time loss. 

According to Shamsuddin, there was no need to accommodate foreign workers in hotels. He suggested that it would be better for the government to quicken the approval process of converting empty buildings to house the workers as it is a better option. 

Meanwhile, Soh said that many employers were not informed of the programme's details, including the participating hotels and their locations.

Temporary accommodation initiative

A collaboration between the Ministry of Tourism, Arts, and Culture and the Department of Labour Peninsular Malaysia, the initiative temporarily houses migrant workers in hotels to curb the spread of Covid-19 cases.

Besides helping employers comply with the minimum requirements under the labour law, the programme indirectly assists hotel operators significantly impacted by the pandemic.

According to the Malaysian Association of Hotels, over 100 hotels have closed since the outbreak began in 2020. Recently, the minister of tourism, arts and culture, Nancy Shukri, said a sum of 79 hotels had signed up for the accommodation programme. 

She said that even though 79 hotels have signed up for the programme, the Labour Department has yet to update about the terms of participation from the employers' side. 

Source: FMT

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