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By SHAILA KOSHY
koshy@thestar.com.my
KUALA LUMPUR: Electronics industry workers can rejoice because although the Government still rejects a national union for them, the registration of four regional unions is almost complete.
The Department of Trade Union Affairs has to date registered three regional electronics employees unions in the peninsula: the Wes-tern Region on Dec 1, 2009 (covering Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and Perak); the Southern Region on March 11 (Johor, Malacca and Negri Sembilan); and Northern Region on March 31 (Penang, Kedah and Perlis).
The Eastern Region, which covers Kelantan, Terengganu and Pahang, is still in the process of registration, said Western Region union general secretary Bruno Periera.
“This is the first time in the history of Malaysian workers that a union has been broken up into regions. It was the decision of the Cabinet on May 27 last year that only unions at regional level would be allowed, unlike the national unions for the other industries,” he said in a statement.
Periera said the first attempt to be unionised nationally failed when the authorities forbade the Electrical Industry Workers’ Union to accept electronics workers as members, saying they were in two different sectors.
An attempt in the 1980s to set up its own national union also failed because government policy then was for in-house unions only in the electronics sector.
Citing other failed attempts over the decades, he said there were around 12 registered in-house unions with about 12,000 members.
“The electronics industry has been in Malaysia for over 35 years; it has raked in millions of ringgit in profits, but there has been little improvement for the employees.
“There is a huge difference in salary between employees and management. In fact, it could be said that there has been no real salary increase from the 1970s to now, with a base salary of between RM350 and RM700 for operators, with most of them earning RM450 a month.”
Veteran trade unionist and past MTUC president Datuk Zainal Rampak said the move to allow the formation of the Electronic Industry Employees Union had helped enhance Malaysia’s image among workers’ organisations.
Source: The Star Online
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