Andrew Lo
KUCHING (July 24): The Malaysian Trade Union Congress (MTUC) Sarawak is against any attempt to reduce Sabah and Sarawak representation on the Social Security Organisation (Socso) board.
Its secretary Andrew Low said MTUC Sarawak was aware of the abuse of power by some of the organisation’s leadership in Kuala Lumpur and they were against their misconduct.
He said MTUC Sarawak do not agree with them, and their disagreements had been spelt out in details in the official letter to the headquarters.
“It has been the long standing policy of MTUC that Sarawak and Sabah Division are entitled to their own representatives to various tripartite organisations like Social Security Organisation (Socso), Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF), National Labour Advisory Council (NLAC) and National Wages Consultative Council (MPGN).
“This is recognised by the government in accordance with the Malaysia Act that recognised Sabah and Sarawak as two of the three partners that make up the Federation of Malaysia.
“Similarly, employers in Sabah and Sarawak also have their own representatives,” he said when to comment on MTUC Sabah’s call to its leadership in the peninsula to respect regional representation on the Socso board.
Lo said MTUC Sarawak had emphasised that the leadership in Kuala Lumpur must take cognizance that any reduction of workers form Sabah or Sarawak without a corresponding reduction in employers reduction will be prejudicial to workers in Sarawak or Sarawak.
This is because under Section 2 of the Trades Unions Act 1959, officials from unions in the peninsula has no locus standi to represent workers in Sarawak, he said.
It follows therefore they cannot dictate who should be the workers representatives from Sarawak, nor can they represent the interest and views of workers in Sarawak or Sabah, he added.
“Aside from that, under the MTUC’s constitution, neither the working committee nor the general council have the authority to change the 60 year old policy and remove workers representatives of Sabah and Sarawak,” said Lo.
Earlier today, Sabah MTUC secretary Catherine Jikunan was reported in Free Malaysia Today (FMT) as saying that there was a talk that the leadership in Kuala Lumpur will be combining the positions allocated to the representative from each state in the board into one, who would then be called the “Borneo representative”.
“But our concern is that we are hearing the position will be filled by a representative from the peninsula instead of an MTUC person from either Sabah or Sarawak,” Jikunan told FMT, adding that the central body has remained silent over the issue despite talk being around for some time.