the blogging syed shahir

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 23 (Bernama) — Malaysia’s labour-backed organisations today dismissed suggestions there was discrimination against women employees when it involved retrenchment.

Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) President Syed Shahir Syed Mohamud said it was a “wrong assumption”, just because women made up the majority in the electronic, electrical and textile industries.

Currently, these industries were laying off their workers, following the global economic downturn.

“While we sympathise with the loss of jobs, we cannot accuse the management of discrimination,” he told Bernama today.

Women, Family and Community Development Deputy Minister Noriah Kasnon was reported as saying that the Government was concerned with the statistics as half of the workers retrenched recently in the economic downturn were women.

This, she said, was despite the women making up only 35 per cent of the country’s total workforce.

Sharing similar sentiments as MTUC, Malaysian Employers Federation executive director Shamsuddin Bardan said retrenchment was the last resort by companies and usually based on “last come, first go” basis.

He assured that Malaysian employers were mindful about women’s rights and would not discriminate against them.

— BERNAMA

By Republika Newsroom

KUALA LUMPUR — Kongres serikat pekerja Malaysia (MTUC) menuntut agar gaji para menteri dan pengusaha dipotong jika keadaan ekonomi semakin gawat.

Presiden MTUC Syed Shahir Syed Mohamud mengatakan, tidak adil jika majikan meminta pekerja mengambil cuti tanpa gaji untuk menyelamatkan perusahaan tapi manajemen tidak melakukan hal yang sama, demikian harian Utusan Malaysia, Sabtu.

Langkah itu, lanjut Syed Shahir, efisiensi perusahaan harus dimulai dari tingkat manajemen termasuk para menteri untuk merasai beban yang ditanggung para pekerja. Jangan hanya menuntut para pekerja melakukan efisiensi dengan mengambil cuti panjang tanpa digaji, padahal mereka punya anak dan keluarga yang harus ditanggung.

Ia juga mengemukakan sebanyak 13.000 pekerja, mayoritas pekerja pabrik dan manufaktur diPHK di seluruh negara bagian Malaysia, antara Oktober 2008 hingga Januari 2009. Presiden MTUC itu mengatakan jumlah itu akan terus meningkat berdasarkan situasi ekonomi global. - ant/ahi

By : Audrey Dermawan

GEORGE TOWN, Fri: The Malaysian Trades Union Congress has proposed that all Cabinet ministers take a pay cut if the economic situation in the country warranted it.

To start the ball rolling, MTUC president Syed Shahir Syed Mohamud said companies which intend to lay off their workers, should first have the salaries of their bosses, including that of their chief executive officers, general managers and directors slashed.

Even the Penang state government has indicated that it would consider the proposal if the situation warrants.

Syed Syahir, however, did not specify the quantum to be deducted.

He said workers should not be the only ones victimised following the current global economic slowdown.
“All ministers and bosses should walk the talk and jointly share in the workers’ burden. This is only fair,” he told reporters after a meeting between MTUC and deputy chief minister Professor P. Ramasamy here yesterday.

It was the first official meeting between MTUC and the state government.

It was reported late last year that ministers and top civil servants in Singapore were subjected to a pay cut of up to 19 per cent this year in view of the clouded economic outlook.

Syed Shahir said from October, last year, to January, this year, MTUC has received reports of some 13,000 people, mainly from the manufacturing sector, retrenched nationwide.

Asked if there were more retrenchments in the state, Ramasamy said he has received news of some 600 foreign workers laid off at a factory in Bayan Lepas recently. It is learnt that the workers are from Globetronics Technology Bhd.

Ramasamy was, however, quick to point out that the situation in the state was still under control and that the state government was monitoring it.

Syed Shahir also expressed the hope that the federal government would expedite the implementation of the retrenchment fund.

“We have been advocating for the fund for the last 10 years but until now it has yet to be implemented. We hope the government will seriously look into this,” he added.

PENANG (Feb 13, 2009): The Malaysian Trade Union Congress (MTUC) has urged Cabinet ministers and top executives to take a salary cut to offset the impact of the economic slowdown.

Its president Syed Shahir Syed Mohamud said it would be unfair to ask workers to go on unpaid leave to save faltering companies while top executives did not make any sacrifices.

The austerity drive should start at the top and not the other way round, he told reporters after calling on Penang Deputy Chief Minister P.Ramasamy here today.

“We should emulate Singapore president and prime minister, who would be taking a salary cut next year, leading a civil-service-wide downward salary adjustment,” he said.

Syed Shahir said the MTUC deplored a statement from a former deputy minister who asked workers to take unpaid leave to save their companies from collapsing.

“Why only the workers who have to make the sacrifices? Cabinet ministers and employers should also do likewise. With their meagre income, the workers would be in dire straits if they were to take unpaid leave, especially those with large families,” he said.

Syed Shahir also called on the federal government to implement the retrenchment fund, which was mooted by MTUC 10 years ago, to help 13,000 workers who were already jobless since October last year.

Commenting on Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng’s remarks that only 1,313 workers from 31 companies in Penang were retrenched in January, he said the MTUC took a serious view on the matter.

The MTUC and the state government has agreed to work out a mechanism in dealing with workers retrenchment, he said, adding that the meeting also touched on the proposed MTUC workers complex in Penang.

Meanwhile, Ramasamy said Penang was prepared to consider a salary cut for state executive councillors should the economic situation worsened. — Bernama

Salam dan salam sejahtera-
Angkatan Muda Bayan Baru dengan kerjasama MTUC Malaysia Union Trades Congress dan Pusat Khidmat Masyarakat ADUN Batu Maung (YB Abdul Malik Kassim) akan mengadakan sessi dialog bersama pekerja sektor industri yang telah diberhentikan kerja atau akan diberhentikan kerja akibat dari kegawatan ekonomi dunia. Sessi dialog ini terbuka kepada semua yang berminat dan akan diadakan seperti maklumat dibawah-

Program : Sessi Dialog bersama MTUC
Tajuk : Pemberhentian kerja serta kesannya- Apa yang patut kita tahu
Ahli Panel : Syed Shahir bin Syed Mohamud President MTUC Pusat
Abd Razak bin Abd Hamid Pengerusi MTUC Pulau Pinang
M.K. Veriah Setiausaha MTUC Pulau Pinang
YB Abd Malik Kassim Exco Perdagangan dan Hal Ehwal Pengguna Pulau Pinang / ADUN Batu Maung
Ahmad Azrizal Tahir - Ketua Angkatan Muda KeADILan Bahagian Bayan Baru
Tarikh : 13 Feb 2009 - Jumaat
Masa : 5.00pm - 7.00pm
Tempat : Pusat Khidmat ADUN Batu Maung-
Berhampiran OCBC Bank Batu Maung.

Siapa yang patut hadir: Mereka yang telah diberhentikan, yang akan diberhentikan dan berkeinginan untuk berkongsi pandangan serta idea.

Sebarkan kepada rakan-rakan anda.

Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 10 – “Not many Indians” are among the 7,000 foreign workers retrenched so far in Malaysia because of the global economic crisis.

Malaysia’s Human Resources Minister S. Subramanian told The Hindu on Sunday that electronics and textiles, the sectors now effected, hosted mainly Indonesian and Bangladeshi workers. The overall job losses were 15,000, including those held by Malaysians.

Indian workers were not hard hit and those affected “could be less than a few hundreds,” Dr Subramanian said. Indians were a conspicuous lot in the services and plantation sectors, which “have not been hit so far.”

The construction industry, hosting “some Indian workers,” was also largely “unaffected”.

Estimates of the number of Indian workers in Malaysia vary between 150,000 and 200,000. And, the two countries recently signed a labour pact providing for an “official framework” for figuring out “solutions of issues” about the terms and conditions of employment.

Interestingly, “there are still quite a number of vacancies” in the information technology sector in Malaysia, but foreigners would be preferred only in some “specialised areas where we cannot find locals.”

It was business as usual for Satyam’s IT operations in Malaysia, the Minister indicated. It had “not actually cut down or reduced” its work.

On the situation in Sri Lanka, he said the humanitarian crisis facing the Tamils “is a matter of concern to us [in the] Malaysian Indian Congress.”

Dr Subramanian, who represents the MIC in the government, said he “might request Malaysian Foreign Minister” to impress on Colombo to ensure that “the civilians are protected.”

Malaysia is hosting between 10,000 and 15,000 Sri Lankan refugees under the UN auspices. Asked about the speculation concerning the whereabouts of LTTE leader V. Prabakaran, Dr.

Subramanian said “we have got no evidence of that here [in Malaysia].” – The Hindu