Workers at risk of losing legal status

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Majority of around three lakh Bangladeshis now working in Malaysia are being exploited by their employers and under imminent risk of losing their legal work status due to flawed and illegal recruitment process, said experts.

Unpaid, underpaid, abused and cheated, around 500 such workers already returned home from the Southeast Asian country and thousands more are likely to follow unless the Bangladesh government takes a proactive effort soon to iron out the issues with its Malaysian counterpart in the greater interest of the country, added the experts.

The experts cautioned that if the Malaysian employers continue the practice of exploitation and abuse, a large number of Bangladeshi workers might resort to leaving their legal jobs and seeking jobs elsewhere in the country, leading to crackdown and deportation by the Malaysian authorities.

Since the workers are being scapegoated for the flawed recruitment mechanism — set by the two countries — that leaves room for malpractice and abuse, both the governments of the two countries need to remedy the situation urgently, they advised.

Mohammad Harun-Al-Rashid, a Bangladeshi labour rights activist working with Tenaganita, a migrants rights organisation in Malaysia, said many workers turn illegal in Malaysia as the recruiters do not complete the workers’ medical tests that are required for obtaining work permits.

Besides, many underpaid workers who posses work permits cannot afford to renew their permits upon the expiration of the permits in one year and thus “thousands will be irregular as per the immigration act of Malaysia,” he added.

“Considering the overall situation, 50 percent of the workers are under a treacherous situation,” Harun added.

The verification of jobs was not done properly by the Bangladesh high commission, resulting in hiring of excessive number of workers than the number required by the factories in Malaysia, said Harun who was actively involved in an action research project on Bangladeshi workers since they started to arrive in Malaysia in the last quarter of 2006.

According to Harun, the employment act of Malaysia does not allow the present system of outsourcing and the system contradicts the immigration act of the country as well.

Explaining the inconsistencies in the recruitment system, he said according to the immigration act, a foreign worker is allowed to work only at the address mentioned on the work permit. On the contrary, the address of the outsourcing agent in Malaysia is mentioned on the work permit, not the factory address of the principal company that employs the worker.

“Since a number of Bangladeshis are working at addresses that don’t match with the addresses mentioned on their work permits, they become irregular,” said Harun.

This puts the workers in a precarious situation when they approach different authorities for various legal or labour issues, Harun added.

For example, if a worker works in Penang and goes to the labour department in Penang for assistance, the department officials advise him to go to the Kuala Lumpur office of the department as his work permit mentions a Kuala Lumpur address of the outsourcing agent, said Harun adding, “But then again, when the worker goes to the labour department in Kuala Lumpur, they ask him to go to Penang.”

Failing to resolve their issues, many workers are compelled to desert their legal jobs and work somewhere else, Harun observed.

Contradicting the employment and immigration acts, as per Malaysian rules, a principal company hiring less than 50 workers must recruit the workers through outsourcing agents, he said.

Studies show that many of such companies, influenced by a group of ‘middlemen’, have obtained more than double recruitment approvals from the government than they could actually employ, said Harun adding that upon arrival, these excess workers remain jobless in the country and thus lose their legal status as per the immigration act.

A number of outsourcing agents are making a quick buck by recruiting workers for companies that exist only on paper, he said adding that violating the Malaysian law, these workers are not provided with work permits within one month of their arrival in the country and without any jobs or work permits, these workers lose legal status in the country.

Sakiul Millat Morshed, an expert on labour migration, said during his visit in Malaysia in December last year, he saw many distressed Bangladeshi workers were looking for ways to get their passports back from their employers so that they could find jobs at other places.

“Once they leave their legal jobs and take their passports back, they will be irregular,” he said speculating that most of the workers are likely to follow the same path. “The problem will be visible in June-July.”

“The main reason behind this is the present recruitment system where outsourcing agents are not held accountable. Violation of laws by the employers is also not properly addressed,” added Morshed, also executive director of Shikkha Shasthya Unnayan Karjokram.

Professor CR Abrar, coordinator of Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit of Dhaka University, said the government should take the issue proactively with high priority, because the workers should not suffer for what they are not responsible.

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