PETALING JAYA: Employment groups have called for stern action to be taken against the employer and agency involved in the suspicious recruitment of 171 Bangladeshi workers in Johor.
Malaysian Human Resources Association president Zarina Ismail said the government should blacklist the companies involved to ensure no parties violate workers’ rights in the future.
She said agents who fail to protect workers’ welfare should also be penalised and stripped of their licences.
“The employer should provide workers a basic wage and other necessities as soon as they arrive in the country,” she added.
On Monday, 171 Bangladeshi workers, who were brought in to work legally, marched to a police station in Kota Tinggi, Johor, to lodge a report against their agent, who had failed to provide jobs to them for over three months.
Association of Employment Agencies Malaysia vice-president Suresh Tan said the employer should pay the workers until they find a new job.
He added that Bangladeshis are particularly vulnerable to job scams and that the Human Resources Ministry should implement ethical recruitment of all workers.
“The recruitment process should be standardised and ethical for all foreign workers,” he said.
He also called on the ministry to set up an independent committee of industry players who can share feedback on recruitment issues.
Malay Economic Action Council chief executive officer Ahmad Yazid Othman said the government should impose a temporary ban on countries where foreign worker scams were reported.
“There are parties who have been accused of facilitating these scam syndicates and they should be immediately apprehended.
“The government must show that enough is enough on this matter,” he said.
