Workers’ uncertain fate under Pakatan’s rule

Since Pakatan Harapan took over the country’s reins a year ago, the disdain by Malaysians against PH has grown as the government casually breaks promises, does “U-turn” and makes contradictory statements which cause public confusion.

Amongst the promises unfulfilled, the most disappointing one is PH’s failure in setting the minimum wage at RM1,500 and creating 1 million job opportunities as promised before GE14, as these 2 issues directly impact the rakyat.

Prior to this, MCA and BN have been asserting that the Pakatan Harapan Manifesto is illogical and not plausible, as well as urging Pakatan to clarify how they plan to implement and fulfil their promises. Nevertheless, our words have fallen on deaf ears, leading to the burdens which the rakyat experience today.

Adding salt to the wound, Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohammad even has the audacity to urge Malaysian workers to not be too choosy, as he said that getting low wages is better than getting no wages. Moreover, the Prime Minister also blamed salary hikes for causing a rise in the cost of living. Besides that, the Minister of Human Resources Kulasegaran suggested that the minimum wage could be set at different values depending on the job sector.

Recently, it was reported that the Pakatan Harapan government plans to send Malaysian blue-collared workers to work in Japan. Wouldn’t it be better if these Malaysians were given job opportunities locally and paid accordingly? On the contrary, Pakatan’s failure to fulfil the promise on minimum wage and job opportunities has led them to exporting Malaysian skilled labour talents to other countries, simultaneously increasing the nation’s dependence on foreign labour and contributing to the brain drain phenomenon.

Thus, we urge Pakatan to fulfil their election promises. Stop ditching our own Malaysian rakyat in foreign lands. Implementing the minimum wage system will surely attract more Malaysians to get into 3D jobs currently taken by foreign workers.

We also urge the new government to take steps to reinforce the national economy by restoring foreign investors’ confidence through effective economic policies. This will naturally create more jobs and increase worker’s pay, synchronously revitalise the economy and the Ringgit’s subpar performance since the change in government.

Mike Chong Yew Chuan
MCA Publicity Bureau Deputy Chairman
MCA Spokesperson

-MCA Online-