Malaysia is one of Asia's biggest employers of foreign labour. But recently, cases of deaths, abuse and forced labour have come to light. What is going on? Who is protecting these migrant workers?
Accident cases and occupational diseases are two other areas in which it hopes
to see a reduction.
<p>Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) director-general Zainuddin
Abdullah said it hoped to realise the target through more inspection of industries,
promotional activities and occupational safety and health (OSH) practitioners.</p>
<p>"We plan to increase inspection by 100 per cent, promotional activities
by 200 per cent and OSH practitioners to 10,000."</p>
<p>At present, there are some 20,000 factories in the country.</p>
<p>In Malaysia, seven per 100,000 workers are involved in occupational fatalities
compared to the International Labour Organisation’s standard of three per
100,000. There were 69,132 industrial accidents reported to the Social Security
Organisation in 2004, with 846 deaths and 9,381 workers suffering permanent
disability.</p>
<p>Zainuddin said the accident rate at the workplace was decreasing due to the
rise in OSH awareness among industry players.</p>
<p>However, he said compared to multinationals, the implementation of OSH management
among small and medium enterprises was still lacking.</p>
<p>"OSH risk management is an essential element in any business and needs
to be managed systematically. Lack of risk control will lead to industrial accidents,
dangerous occurrence, occupational diseases or even occupational poisoning to
people at work."</p>
<p>Zainuddin said DOSH had also started exploring the "Decent Work"
concept for workers.</p>
<p>The concept is about whether employers are capable of providing a suitable
environment for labour.
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