Kota Kinabalu: Women workers in the manufacturing sector urged the government to guarantee 98 days of paid maternity leave and introduce an anti-sexual harassment law.The committee of Wanita Industrial Malaysia, a trade union coalition representing thousands of women workers in the manufacturing sector in West Malaysia, urged the Malaysian government to immediately ratify Convention 183 and Convention 190 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) for the protection of women's rights.
“Although Malaysia has been categorised as an upper-middle income country, the rights and benefits of women workers are still outdated. For example, paid maternity leave in the Philippines is 105 days while in Thailand, 98 days.
“On the other hand, Malaysian women in the private sector only get 60 days paid maternity leave under the Employment Act 1955 while their counterparts in the public sector get 90 days maternity leave, said Idawati Idrus and Selvakumari Abraham, the group’s joint-chairpersons, in a statement.
“Convention 183 on maternity protection requires the government to guarantee 98 days (14 weeks) paid maternity leave, which is an international standard when the ILO passed the Convention in 2000.
“In fact, ILO Convention 103 in 1952 mandated 84 days (12 weeks) of paid maternity leave. Clearly, our existing laws have failed to meet the international standards since 70 years ago.”
They said that after the Malaysia Trade Union Congress (MTUC) and Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) rejected Convention 190 on terrorism and (sexual) harassment, the Malaysian government took a neutral stance at the ILO conference in Geneva in June 2019.
The statement said the new leaders of the tripartite bodies have yet to show their stance on the issue of ratification of Convention 190.
“Ratification of Convention 190 is important because Malaysian laws are currently insufficient to combat sexual harassment in the workplace and in public spaces,” they contended.
“The Employment Act 1955 places all responsibility on employers in sexual harassment investigations but this mechanism is not sufficient to protect the rights of women workers because if superiors in the workplace are the perpetrators of sexual harassment, generally, the management will side with the superiors.
“The government should understand the unequal power relationship in the workplace and try to solve the root cause of the problem.”
The joint-chairpersons argued that after ratifying Convention 190, the government should enact or amend laws to prevent gender-based violence and sexual harassment at workplace.
“We call on the government to at least strengthen the sexual harassment investigation mechanism in the Employment Act 1955 and we fully support the initiative to enact a separate anti-sexual harassment Act,” they said.
