MTUC urges workers to vote for Pakatan

PETALING JAYA: The Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) today came out in support of Pakatan Harapan by urging 14 million workers to vote for the opposition in tomorrow's general election.
Its secretary-general J. Solomon said they must prove to the government that workers are key to the country's economy and should not be ignored.
"Workers have the power to vote out any government that is anti-labour because the workers' voice and the workers' strength is sacred and powerful.
"We want a Government to give us equal respect in the tripartite body so that workers can have an equitable share in the wealth of the nation," he said in a statement today.
He said wages were low, workers were becoming poorer, living on borrowed income and their livelihood has been further crippled by surging prices of goods with the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) which must be abolished.
Solomon pointed out that 2.8 million households fall under the B40 income category and it is a large segment of society who are being suppressed with poor wages.
He added that 75% of Malaysians do not have enough savings to tide them over for more than a week without work and 18% of Employees Provident Fund (EPF) members will be living just above poverty line after retirement.
"Unions are necessary to uplift the socio-economy of the working class but here, they are being suppressed by archaic laws with no indication to repeal them.
"Our appeals to the government to reform the laws have gone to deaf ears," he said.
The MTUC secretary-general said job security had become an indirect cause for undue stress for workers as the country accelerates into industry 4.0.
He said no constructive action has been taken by the Government at the tripartite level to prepare workers for the Future of Work.
Solomon said the three million job opportunities promised in the next five years in the BN manifesto seems rather ambiguous because the promises of 1.5 million job opportunities in the 11th Malaysian plan is not fulfilled yet.
"Let’s give PH an opportunity to serve Malaysians as a majority ruling party for five years. If they do not serve the workers, we change them in the next five years, in this way no government will be indispensable," he said.