PETALING JAYA: Is there more to the ruckus over Petronas’s employment policy in Sarawak than meets the eye, asks the Sarawak division of the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC).
The Sarawak Government recently froze work permits for Petronas staff to work in the state to ensure the national oil company would be fair and transparent in engaging Sarawakians with regard to its operations in the state.
“Politics should not get in the way of hiring or firing. Businesses should not be dictated by some politicians for their own political and business agendas.
“Is all the noise over Petronas’s employment policy just a ruse to get more Petronas contracts for connected companies?” Sarawak MTUC Secretary Andrew Lo asked in a statement released today.
He said all recent news reports on the issue also risked creating a negative image of those interested in investing in Sarawak.
Speaking on the Petronas retrenchment exercise which saw a number of employees, including 13 senior executives, made redundant, Lo said the national oil company’s actions were nothing new.
“Given the current low oil prices and changing financial conditions, such redundancies are to be expected.”
Responding to a comment from Sarawak Deputy Chief Minister James Masing yesterday that the state government was “not stupid” to prioritise employment for Sarawakians at the expense of quality, Lo said MTUC was not questioning the intelligence of Sarawak ministers.
“We only ask why the Sarawak Government is making a fuss over the employment issue in Petronas’s operations in the state after having issued so many work permits for non-Sarawakians all these years.
“Also, why, despite both the federal and state governments being under Barisan Nasional, has the state government allowed such blatant discrimination and exploitation for so long?”
The MTUC statement also called for Chief Minister Adenan Satem to look beyond just trying to protect the interests of 13 senior executives laid off by Petronas, while “turning a blind eye to the tens of thousands of foreign workers depriving ordinary Sarawakians of a decent job with decent wages.”
“They are now everywhere, including the services sector, which is not a 3D (dirty, dangerous and difficult) job.
“So, why didn’t we freeze issuance of permits to these tens of thousands of foreign workers, not to mention the inaction on the thousands of illegal ones?”
Lo also brought up a number of issues in the past, when the Sarawak Government did not voice out or act on the issue of “protecting Sarawakians” over the issue of employment.
These were when:
1. A state government majority-owned company retrenched senior employees in 2011 because, in the words of the then Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud, there was a need “to get rid of employees” (who were all Sarawakians).
2. A state-linked company dismissed both the president and secretary of the staff union for issuing a union circular.
3. Another company, with substantial state interests, dismissed union officials on the grounds of redundancy.
4. A state-linked oil palm company retrenched staff without any notice at all.
5. Petronas abolished the allowance paid to lower-ranked Sarawakian staff.
6. The majority of workers in the oil palm industry, which was under Masing until recently, were paid only minimum wages.
7. At least 80 per cent of the workforce in the oil palm and timber industries were foreigners, including a large number of estate managers from Peninsular Malaysia.
8. The Sarawak Government does not pay cost of living allowance to civil servants in the state despite the Federal Government paying it in Kuala Lumpur/Putrajaya and state governments in Peninsular Malaysia doing so.
Referring to what he termed “double standards”, Lo said: “It seems that the state government’s claims to protect Sarawakians’ interests are limited to protecting the interests of senior and connected Sarawakians and Sarawakian companies.
“Is this what autonomy is about?”
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