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Monday, November 17, 2014

ANOTHER NAJIB FIASCO: Malaysian electronics sector in danger of being placed on US watch list

ANOTHER NAJIB FIASCO: M'sian electronics sector in danger of being placed on US watch list
In 2012, US Labour Department funded a global NGO called Verite to conduct a study whether forced labour exists in Malaysia. In September 2014, Verite published a report called “Forced Labour in the Production of Electronic Goods in Malaysia”.
In the report, Verite interviewed 501 male and female workers across all major producing regions, electronic products and foreign nationalities. They found about 28% of workers to be in situation of forced labour. The issues they highlighted were:
1.     Recruitment fee charging and indebtedness compelled workers to work.
2.     Deceptive recruitment
3.     Passport retention, constrained in freedom of movement.
4.     Poor living conditions, in housing provided by employers or third party employment agents.
5.     Foreign workers difficult to leave before the end of their work contracts.
This report will be key to US Government’s decision on “International ranking on Forced Labour”. From information provided to me, US labour department will put Malaysia on watch list by 1st December 2014 (less than 2 weeks time). If US Government ranks Malaysia unfavourably, it has potential damning implications for the E&E sector in Malaysia. Some of the implications might be:
1.     US companies maybe prohibited to do business with Malaysian Manufacturers.
2.     Shrinking of future FDIs into Malaysia
3.     E&E export products to US-Europe market affected where labour practice compliance is required.
In short, this is the single biggest threat to the survival of E&E sector in Malaysia.
In the last several years, Malaysia’s agriculture industry had suffered 2 major bans by EU and China. In 2008, EU banned Malaysian Seafood and live fish export that did not meet EU standards. In 2011, China banned Malaysian bird’s nest after failing to comply with China’s permissible nitrite level. Billions of ringgit lost and both industries have not recovered fully since the ban.
We cannot afford to have Malaysian E&E sector placed on watchlist by US authority, because E&E is the largest sector in total export of Malaysia. In 2013, RM236.8 billion export are E&E product, equivalent of 32.9% of total export of Malaysia. E&E currently employs millions of Malaysian including massive downstream industries. It is the major FDI attraction into Malaysia and Penang particularly. Penang now hosts major E&E global companies such as Intel, Western Digital, AMD, Dell, Osram, Motorolla, Agilent Technologies, National Instruments and etc.
Not everything reported in Verite report is entirely true. Malaysia in fact has comprehensive laws and regulations to protect workers, irrespective of whether local or foreign, such as below:
1.     Employment Act 1955
2.     Workmen’s Compensation Act 1952 (Act 273)
3.     Occupational Safety and Health 1994
4.     National Wages Consultative Council Bill 2011 (Act 732)
5.     Factories and Machinery Act 1967 (Act 139)
6.     Passport Act 1966 (Act 150)
7.     Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act 2007
The Electronic Industry also self regulate themselves by creating Electronic Industry Code of Conduct (EICC code) that provides guidelines on social, environment and ethical aspects to the global electronics supply chain. This is to ensure basic working condition for individuals.
In Penang, where most of the E&E companies are located, sample surveys by InvestPenang showed that 4 out of 5 companies are already EICC compliance. EICC imposed higher standards in terms of recruitment process, living conditions, safekeeping of passport and breaking of contract.
However, these improvements are not properly communicated by MITI to US Labour Department. The US embassy has alerted MITI as well as other stakeholders as early as October. However, no feedbacks were presented to counter Verite report by December 1st deadline. That could result into one-sided decision by US Labor Department. The incompetency of UMNO/BN government will make the largest economic sector suffer tremendously, same fate like Seafood blacklisting by EU and bird’s nest ban by China.
I urge MITI to immediately respond to this urgent issue. They must immediately do the following suggestions:
1.     Respond to US Labor Department to counter the issues raised by Verite Report.
2.     Work with American Chambers of Commerce (AMCHAM) to produce counter report.
3.     Strictly enforce existing laws to clean up irresponsible parties.
4.     Assemble all stakeholders including E&E chieftains and labour representatives for emergency meeting to find solutions.
5.     Commit to best practices of labour standards.
6.     Reduce foreign labour dependency and prioritize local workers
7.     Allow E&E sector to set up labour unions to improve workers conditions.
This is a matter of survival for Electrical and Electronic Sector in Malaysia, we can not afford to lose this.
Sim Tze Tzin is the MP for Bayan Baru where most E&E companies are located.

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