No Discrimination Against Women - MTUC
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
