Discrimination laws should be preventive

THE Association for Community and Dialogue (ACID) welcomes the proposed amendments to the Employment Act 1955 (EA 55), which was tabled for the first reading at the Dewan Rakyat last ctober, and the second reading is expected to be today until Dec 18.

While we welcome such an initiative by the government to meet International standards of labour law, we are concerned about the issues related to the new Section 69F, in respect to discrimination in employment. The proposed Section 1 states:

“The director-general may inquire into and decide any dispute between an employee and his employer in respect of any matter relating to discrimination in employment, and the director-general may, pursuant to such decision, make an order.”

It seems that what constitutes discrimination is based on the subjective understanding of
the director-general, employers and employees.

It depends on the discretion of the director-general to mediate such issues that could end up in disagreement rather than an in depth understanding of what constitutes human dignity of a worker and how discrimination violates this principle.

The amendment lacks objectivity in meeting higher labour standards as it fails to spell out in a reasonable broader term of what constitutes discrimination. For example, would humiliating an employee in front of his or her colleagues, to force a resignation be construed as discrimination?

Are we addressing issues like violence and harassment at the work place?

What about transferring a staff to another department without consent or demoting a staff without the appropriate reason and due cause? What about ethnic discrimination of wanting certain race to work in a particular department.

The issues mentioned above are real issues of discrimination in the Malaysian context that goes to the core of what it means to protect the dignity of the workforce, and at the same time ensuring that employers benefit from a fair and equitable eco-system that nurtures human capital development.

Therefore, ACID urges the Human Resources Ministry to create an objective criterion in the amendment of the Employment Act on discrimination that would create a preventive culture against discrimination, rather than a reactive culture of subjectivity that would depend on the continuous interpretation of courts on what constitutes discrimination.

Ronald Benjamin

Secretary

Association for Community and Dialogue