Workmen’s Compensation Act Repeal: Will Malaysians Be Affected?

Human Resources Minister M. Kulasegaran has assured that Malaysian employees will not be affected by the repeal of the Workmen’s Compensation Act 1952.

“I’ll make sure local workers will not get less (than what they are getting now)”, anything have any shortage, but will get more from what they will be doing," He said to reporters during a working visit to the Kulim Advanced Technology Training Center (Adtec) on Sunday.

He mentioned that the act was repealed in order to protect the welfare of foreign workers in Malaysia in terms of insurance coverage, as well as to show that government did not discriminate these workers.

He also said that the move was in line with the Equality of Treatment (Accident Compensation  Convention 1925 (No. 19) and the Conference committee on the Application of Standards under the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

Unlike local workers, Kulasegaran said foreign workers were protected under the Social Security Organisation (Socso) and the government could take action on any employers that did not subscribe Socso for their employees.

“For instance, recently representatives from the Japanese government met me and requested for our people to work there because their population is getting older. So,  we must make sure our people who go there (Japan) to work are covered by insurance.

“We do not want incidence like in Bukit Kukus to happen where it involved many foreign workers. Those killed get nothing (compensation), which is not fair,”  he said referring to the landslide at Bukit Kukus in Penang, last October which resulted in the deaths of nine people.

Encouraging more people to join TVET

During his visit to Adtec, the Human Resources Minister said efforts should be made to promote the centre to get more young people to enrol in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET).

He also said the marketability of TVET graduates was strong and the public stigma towards vocational graduates had changed for the better.

"Many young people are unemployed because they have no skills, they need to enrol for skills training and we will look at these skills institutions so that they can attract more students," he said.

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