‘Something fishy about mill closure’

PKR claims Bukit Talang Palm Oil Mill's impending closure is because the manufacturers are unwilling to pay workers the national floor wage.

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PETALING JAYA: The impending closure of a palm oil mill owned by a subsidiary firm of government-linked company Sime Darby will leave 37 local workers without jobs and homes, PKR revealed today.

The party’s consumer bureau chief, Mohd Yahya Mat Sahri, suggested that the Bukit Talang Palm Oil Mill, located in Tanjung Karang, Selangor, will be closing in March next year because they were unwilling to pay the workers in accordance with the national minimum wage.

Mohd Yahya said that the workers were currently paid RM350 a month – a far cry from the RM900 floor wage fixed for workers in the peninsular. As a result, he said, they have been working overtime to earn additional income.

“We are somewhat suspicious that a factory which has operated for more than 60 years could suddenly suffer a shocking loss. How could a factory located in the middle of a fertile plantation that yields so much palm oil suffer losses?” asked Mohd Yahya today.

“The consumer bureau feels that the closure as well as the retrenchment of staff is due to the fact that the [Bukit Talang Palm Oil Factory management] and [Sime Darby] do not want to be burdened by the monthly minimum wage of RM900.”

Mohd Yahya’s suspicions are apparently not without basis. RHB Research Institute had previously revealed that manufacturers in Malaysia have been shedding workers due to the impending minimum wage, as well as uncertain global economy.

The research house said that in August, manufacturers retrenched 4,609 workers compared to a recruitment of 441 workers in July.

The Minimum Wage Order 2012, in accordance with Subsection 23 (1) of National Wage Consultation Council 2011, was gazetted in July and will first take effect on Jan 1 next year.

Probe losses

According to the gazette, the minimum wage rate was fixed at RM900 per month or RM4.33 per hour for the peninsular and RM800 per month or RM3.85 per hour for Sabah and Sarawak.

“All of these workers do not have homes, so where are they supposed to go after this?” asked Mohd Yahya.

“It is not that they deliberately did not want to purchase homes…their salaries are just too miniscule for them to even consider saving up money to buy their own homes.”

The workers, who are all local, have been working at the factory from five months to 28 years, said Mohd Yahya.

He said that while the employers have promised to provide the workers with a notice as well as monetary compensation, this was not enough.

Mohd Yahya suggested that rather than laying off the workers, Sime Darby should transfer them to work on its vast plantations.

“Sime Darby Plantations has thousands of acres of plantations that require labour force. It should reduce foreign workers because we have so many local workers,” said Mohd Yahya.

He also urged the government to probe the alleged losses suffered by the factory as it suggested that the country’s economy was on a downward spiral.