PETALING JAYA: The Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) Presidential Committee presented its 2020 wishlist on human resource policies to the Human Resources Ministry on Jan 21, highlighting a number of issues it seeks support from the ministry for.
In a statement today, FMM president Tan Sri Soh Thian Lai said the federation has asked the ministry to limit its requirement for a social compliance audit on foreign workers to be limited to export oriented industries and industries that are part of a global supply chain.
“Imposing on all, especially domestic-oriented industries and SMEs would have a severe cost impact. In addition, there must be a national standard or code of practice established on social compliance audits to ensure transparency and standardisation,” he said.
From Jan 1 2021, the government plans to implement a social compliance audit in accordance with international labour standards as a prerequisite for employment of foreign workers.
The audit will have to be carried out by independent auditors nto issues such as forced labour and forced overtime.
This proposal came about as a response to a US ban on imports of products from five countries suspected to have been produced, in whole or in part, using forced labour.
Soh also said FMM has presented a proposal to further support and strengthen the skilled workforce requirement of the industry through Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) training and implementation of a “place and train” model of TVET apprentices.
“FMM proposed that the foreign worker levy be ploughed back to support more TVET apprentices in industries. FMM also suggested that TVET apprentice offices be set up nationwide to facilitate and monitor this initiative.
“Further discussions would be held with the Human Resources Ministry to study the proposal for consideration of other relevant ministries,” he said.
Meanwhile, FMM also reiterated its call for there to be a preannounced clear and certain roadmap of the phases of increases in minimum wage rates, and also called for the definition of minimum wage to be reviewed to be in line with the definition of wages in the Employment Act.
It also repeated its earlier proposals for foreign worker management to be handled by a single ministry and a single online system including implementation of the market based multi-tier levy system.
