Booming Malaysia a magnet for migrants

Booming Malaysia a magnet for migrants

As Malaysia becomes more affluent, it becomes a magnet for migrant workers. Kalinga Seneviratne of Inter Press Service reports.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's rapid economic growth has made it a magnet for migrant workers and all the problems that go with a large population of foreign workers.

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad plans to make Malaysia a fully developed nation by 2020, and economic expansion has led to a serious labor shortage. The country has opened its doors to workers fleeing poverty and unemployment in other parts of Asia.

There are now an estimated two million guest workers in this nation of 19.6 million people. Half of these migrants hold legal work permits while the rest entered illegally, mainly through Thailand and Indonesia.

Indonesians initially dominated the market with cheap labor but Bangladeshis are now a force to be reckoned with. There are now at least 200,000 Bangladeshi workers in the country -- more than half of them working in plantations and factories.

Malaysia has reached an agreement with Bangladesh to recruit 50,000 skilled and semi-skilled workers -- including nurses and doctors -- every year.

Increasing numbers of middle-class Malaysians are employing domestic helpers mainly from the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Deputy Home Minister Ong Ka Ting has admitted the immigration department has a backlog of at least 10,000 applications for work permits for foreign maids. Unscrupulous employers, however, are exploiting the desperation of many of the Asian workers fleeing from poverty at home. Bangladeshis are the most vulnerable.

"Recruiting agencies promise them US$300 a month if they come to Malaysia," says welfare worker S. Sinnappan. He says many young university graduates, lured by promotional photos and videos, end up getting only half this amount.

Most of the Bangladeshi plantation workers, with whom Sinnappan works, had been promised jobs as technicians or engineers. They had never worked in plantations and were not used to the heavy work in the palm oil estates.

"They paid the agencies as much as 6,000 ringgit (about US$ 2,400) to come here. Many raised the money by mortgaging their land or house," he adds.

G. Rajasekaran, secretary-general of the Malaysian Trade Union Congress, says they do not object to migrant labor, provided the government makes sure there are still jobs left for Malaysians. The government has drawn up regulations, but enforcement is very weak, he says. "It has become so chaotic because recruitment is done through recruiting agents."

Rajasekaran says such agencies have mushroomed in recent years because it is an easy way to make big money without any capital outlay. "You just bring a person here, collect money from the person who wants to work, and collect money from company that wants to employ him."

He says exploitation happens at both ends and has led to corruption like the forging of work permits and other documents. He favors government-to-government deals but is worried that an unregulated labor influx will undermine working conditions.

"Despite impressive economic growth rates in the last five years, wage levels and living standards of Malaysian workers -- especially industrial workers -- have not gone up as much as they should have," he says, and the flood of foreign workers has affected the bargaining power of trade unions.

"If the government didn't allow foreign workers to come in, even without collective bargaining, because of supply and demand wage rates would have gone up," argues Rajasekaran.

He says because of the comparative low wage rates in Malaysia, as much as 60,000 Malaysians cross the border each day to work in Singapore, where a factory worker gets about US$380 per month compared to $160 a month for the same job at home.

A task force on foreign labor has recommended a monthly wage of $140 but some firms pay only $110. Locals refuse to work for such wages, and companies use this as an excuse to turn to foreign workers. The government this month warned it would no longer tolerate such exploitation.

Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who heads the cabinet's Committee on Foreign Workers, is concerned about the impact of foreign workers on employment opportunities for Malaysians. "We will not accept foreign workers at the expense of Malaysians, especially the younger generation, who are entering the employment market. We want to ensure that priority is given to Malaysians for all employment opportunities," he said.

In his 1965 budget, Anwar who is also minister of finance, increased the levy on foreign workers by 100 percent. He also announced in August that foreign jobseekers can now be recruited only as domestic helpers or shop assistants.

P. Arunasalam, secretary-general of the Electrical Industry Workers Union, urged the government to gradually phase out its labor intensive industries and instead train Malaysians to overcome the shortage of skilled labor for high-tech industries. He warns an increase in foreign labor will put more demands on the government schooling system to cater for their children. He says many foreign workers have already forced small traders in Malaysia to give up their trade at night markets.

"Huge sums of money remitted by the foreign workers to their respective countries of origin is a big drain on our country's economy," says Arunasalam. "In 1994 alone, $960 million was sent out of the country by one million workers."

Rajasekaram argues that because of the low wage rates cushioned by foreign labor, many Malaysian women are not encouraged to join the workforce. He cites an official report last year saying Malaysia would have 729,000 more workers if more women were encouraged to work.

Many Malaysians are now questioning the pace of development in their country while others think the problems of illegal migration and exploitation of foreign labor should be addressed first.

-- IPS