BINTULU: Companies in the district that refuse to comply with the standard operating procedures (SOPs) and cause workplace outbreaks should bear the costs of swab tests and quarantine costs for their employees.
Bintulu MP Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing, in saying this, said that he would advise the Bintulu Disaster Management Committee (DDMC) to consider making such a rule on irresponsible companies.
“Despite the enhanced version of the conditional movement control order (CMCO), many companies have stubbornly refused to cooperate.
“These companies should take responsibility for violating the SOPs including not protecting the health of their workers during the pandemic,” he said in a Facebook post on Monday (May 24).
He said there were cases where some companies, after discovering their employees had been infected, had warned the employees not to provide a list of their close contacts.
These companies, he said, did not want their operations to be suspended.
“They will stoop as low as threatening their workers with dismissals if they don’t lie on the company’s behalf. If the employees cannot go to work because they are quarantined, they will be forced to apply for unpaid leave or accept salary deductions.
“This is all to benefit the companies. The behaviours of these companies have seriously affected the authorities’ efforts in tracing potentially infected persons,” he said.
Tiong added it had also been discovered that some companies stopped their employees from checking in with the MySejahtera app when reporting for work. This was to prevent the authorities from knowing that more than 30 percent of their staff had turned up for work in person.
“Incredulously, these companies have even forced their employees to pay their own fines if they are caught. So, in order to keep their jobs, the employees do not dare to speak up.
Tiong said that these companies must be sternly warned not to pressure or threaten their employees to go along with their unsavoury schemes to save profits.
“Their employers are human beings whose health and safety should come first. They are not mere tools for the companies to make money,” he said.
