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Malaysia's amnesty for illegal workers faces hurdles
Straights Times - July 20, 2011
From Aug 1, illegal foreign workers in the country, upon getting themselves registered via a biometric fingerprint system, will either get to stay on legally or be deported without penalty. However, the plan, which was announced last month, has been hit by complaints about costs, scams and abuse.
The exercise aims to address a long-standing problem. Half of the four million foreign workers are illegals who enter the country initially on social visit or student passes and stay on. Their prevalence has been blamed for fuelling the country's dependence on low-skilled labour, as well as crime and other social ills.
The initiative is meant to help the authorities keep track of them and prevent more illegals from entering Malaysia. But soon after the exercise was announced, reports surfaced about legal workers running away from their employers.
Six rubber-manufacturing companies in Perak said last week that hundreds of their workers have gone missing. Many of them were nearing the end of their contracts and probably did not want to return home, the companies speculated.
"We believe that the workers ran away because they want to be seen as illegals and when the exercise begins, they will be legalised," said Ms Azizah Ghazali, an executive from one of the affected companies.
Under Malaysia's employment rules, foreign workers are not allowed to change jobs when their contracts end and would have to return home.
Other employers said they lost workers they had just hired. By running away, these workers avoid having to repay agent fees, usually deducted monthly from their salaries, to their employers.
Soong Kok Hong from the Malaysian Employers Federation said some local agents were also luring foreign workers to leave their jobs and become "illegals" with promises of better salaries and benefits after they re-register. These legal workers would disappear from their jobs and declare themselves illegal so as to be able to work elsewhere, perhaps in a different industry, once the amnesty begins.
Another problem is the cost of registering an illegal worker. Some employers have complained about the levies and other fees imposed, which they claimed would likely set them back by thousands of ringgit. Critics say neither the employer nor the illegal worker would be willing to fork out such fees.
One coffee shop owner, in a letter to a newspaper, wrote that he would have to pay RM13,500 (S$5,500) to get all three of his workers legalised. "Who has that amount in these bad times? It's not that we are making tonnes of profit," he said. "I have asked many of my friends who run coffee shops, and they all agree that we might as well close shop."
The government has since stepped in to deal with some of these problems. Earlier this month, the authorities decided to register legal foreign workers, before starting with illegal ones on Aug 1. The objective was to identify legal workers who had absconded.
But that too has run into difficulties as many employers are reluctant to take time off to register their workers. Others claimed they were still confused over the exercise.
An estimated 130,000 legal workers need to be registered daily to meet the July 31 deadline for all two million workers here. So far, only 80,409 workers from 5,818 companies have been registered, according to a statement by the Home Ministry yesterday.
The numbers do not bode well, although some employers believe that the response will pick up once the deadline draws nearer.
A commentary in The Star noted that the success of the amnesty programme would depend on its implementation. It said that at least half to two-thirds of the illegal workers will have to come forward to be registered, for a start.
"For that to happen, most of them must believe that the government is serious about cracking down on them after the amnesty expires. "That kind of convincing is not going to be easy," the newspaper added.
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