Check influx of foreign workers

THE ongoing diplomatic spat between Malaysia and North Korea has laid bare the dysfunctional management of our country’s foreign worker policy. The fact is, we have North Korean workers here.

Initially, there were claims that the North Koreans were here on a special arrangement limited to only one mining company. This is not surprising as North Koreans may have the required mining expertise. But the company disclosed that they no longer have them and the last batch was sent back months ago.

So it is shocking that last Wednesday, the Chief Minister disclosed that out of the 176 North Korean workers in Sarawak, 140 of them were found to be overstaying after their work permits expired while 36 had legal work permits. That means 80% of them are illegals!

According to a report in The Guardian on Oct 29, 2015, human rights activists claimed that tens of thousands of North Koreans were sent to work abroad in conditions that amount to forced labour to circumvent United Nations sanctions and earn up to US$2.3bil in foreign currency for the country, as revealed by a UN investigator.

A local newspaper managed to speak to a North Korean worker with a valid pass, who is one of six legal North Koreans working at a construction along the Batu Kawah-Matang Link Road.

According to him, he has been working in Sarawak for the past four years and started working at the construction site two months ago after working in the Kota Samarahan area.

Asked about his salary, he said: “You would not understand and Malaysians and anyone from any country would not understand.”

So there you go, we have North Koreans working not only in mining.

Our foreign worker issue has reached a dysfunctional state. Despite crackdown after crackdown, the problems have worsened. On Labour Day in 2009, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the Government was serious in reducing foreign workers. Within the same week, the Cabinet deferred the decision to increase the levy that was designed to reduce foreign workers.

We have a special lab on foreign workers under the National Key Result Areas as a means to ensure better control of foreign workers. It has not worked.

It is strange that employment-related issues come under the Human Resources Ministry but licences are issued by the Home Ministry to allow the import of foreign labour. And the Immigration Department, under the Home Ministry, has clearly failed to stop illegals from entering.

In 2014, Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri Richard Riot was reported to have said that there could be as many as 6.7 million foreign workers, both legal and illegal, in the country.

He warned that foreign workers could control our economy, if given the opportunity. It is shocking that half of our workforce are foreign workers.

During the 6P legalisation programme in 2011, 2,088,358 foreign workers were registered, out of which 1,135,499 were illegals. How did we get to this sorry state of affairs? Something is not right.

The Government must realise that employers hire foreign workers not because Malaysians shun such jobs but because the employers, through their economic might, have managed to suppress wages and make huge profits. Employers claim that local workers are choosy. Local workers claim that salaries are not attractive enough.

Employers have strongly opposed minimum wage reviews. Wages have fallen below productivity to form only 32% of the GDP when it should be at 50% to 60%.

It is no coincidence that the crime rate has increased in tandem with the influx of foreign workers. The irony is that we now have to employ foreign security guards to protect our properties against foreign criminals.

At this rate the number of foreign guards will outnumber the Malaysian army. It is a serious security issue. Our sovereignty is at stake!

So let’s grab the bull by the horns and set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry so that we can get to the bottom of this pit.