… and workers protected under state labour laws
Not many know that massage parlours are actually legal and that certain category of employees working in these outlets are covered under the Sarawak Labour Ordinance.
Sarawak Labour Department assistant director Phang Pin clarified that massage parlours are legal and fall under the Sarawak Labour Ordinance.
He said employees whose wages do not exceed RM2,500 per month are covered under the Labour Ordinance.
Phang, in an interview together with his colleague Wahid Olen, also a senior assistant director, said for employers who wanted to hire non-resident workers, they needed to apply for licence from the Labour Department.
He said once they had obtained a licence from the department, which is for a two-year period, they could bring in workers after getting other documentations from other government agencies.
He explained the definition of ‘employee’ as “generally any person, irrespective of his occupation, who has entered into a contract of service with an employer under which such person’s wages do not exceed RM2,500 per month and any person who, irrespective of the amount of wages he earns in a month, has entered into a contract of service with an employer in pursuance of which he is engaged in manual labour with no salary ceiling”.
These six jobs that are covered under the Sarawak Labour Ordinance included those doing manual labour, maintenance of any mechanically propelled vehicles for the transport of passengers or goods or for reward or for commercial purposes, supervise or oversees other employees engaged in manual labour employed by the same employer in and throughout the performance of their work, engaged in recruiting of employees, those involved in vessel works (not an officer certificated under the Merchant Shipping Acts and not a holder of a local certificate of the Merchant shipping Ordinance 1952) and those engaged as a domestic servant.
Massage, he said, was on a piece-rated task and the massage definition was an employee, thus the provision of terms and conditions must be followed as stipulated under the Sarawak Labour Ordinance.
These, he said, included overtime pay and fixed working hours. Should these exceed the limit, certain allowance must be paid as agreed between the employees and the employers. Entitlement, he added, included sick leave, maternity leave and annual leave.
Under the law, Phang added that all those defined under employees are entitled to at least 18 days public holidays per year and should an employee work on a rest day or public holidays, he is entitled to be paid three times.
“The Labour ordinance provides that there should not be any deduction of wages or allowances allowed. Wages do not only cover basic pay, that also cover other job tasks like outstation, overtime etc… Our concerns are with the employees’ working hours and payment,” he explained.
On retrenchment, Phang said employees are entitled to benefits as provided under the law and should that not be done, employees can always come to lodge a complaint at the
department.
Phang said it was normal for the government to ensure that employers give priorities to local first before getting in foreigners to work and that applied to all types of industry.
Explaining the procedure, he said the employer must show their effort to invite locals under Provision Section 119 of the Labour Ordinance.
They should advertise in the newspapers and broadcast through RTM, the number of vacancies they need.
Then, they have to interview the applicants in the Labour department office set up for the purpose.
“This is compulsory and if they failed to get any one, then they can go ahead to hire foreigners after they were given Approval in Principal (AP).
“There are many times when no one bothers to turn up for the interviews and this includes the plantation or the construction sectors,” he said.
Phang said there were some employers who did not apply any licence from the department and if caught, they would have to face the law.
For this year from January to May, he said, there were nine cases registered in court under Section 119 of the Sarawak Labour Ordinance.
Out of the nine, two are pending trial. Under Section 119, the maximum penalty is RM10,000 or six months jail or both.
Seventy-four compounds were issued under the same section and a maximum fine is RM5,000. This year, Phang disclosed that a total of RM96,000 was collected.
For last year, the department issued 145 compounds, collecting RM172,500.
He warned that the department would not only do routine statutory checks but also ad-hoc inspections.
These, he said, were done with other government agencies like Socso or EPF departments.
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