Glove industry windfall: Profiting from misery of workers?

 

Malaysia reported the highest-ever daily new Covid-19 infections of 2,335 cases on Dec 26. It is indeed disturbing that this should occur on Boxing Day, made infamous by the tsunami in 2004.

Amidst the record-breaking number of Covid-19 cases since the past few months, Malaysiakini carried a story on Dec 15, of Top Glove whistle-blower, Yabaraj Khadka.

A foreign worker of eight years, Yabaraj was summarily dismissed and booted out of the country at his own expense. This is a story that may have remained untold if not for Malaysiakini interviewing Yubaraj two months later.

Unfortunately many dismissed the report as an isolated case, and true enough there was hardly any news on the implications of the revelations of this brave soul.

This story may indeed unravel all that is wrong in handling Covid-19 if one connects these dots:

• The windfall fortunes of the glove industry
• The effectiveness of the fight against Covid-19
• Seemingly skewed monitoring and enforcement of Covid-19 SOPs
• Selective persecution of ordinary citizens as compared to corporate bigwigs, the ruling class, and elites
• The cosy thriving ecosystem of the powerful aided by corruption and cronyism

The end result, ordinary Malaysians suffer and are deprived of their freedom, livelihoods, social interactions, and joys of everyday living.

Windfall fortunes

We ordinary Malaysians watched with envy daily reports of the glove and associated industries proudly announcing their unprecedented profits and wealth primarily as a result of the Covid-19 infections. These corporates must be wishfully thinking; the more the cases, the greater the returns.

Top Glove, for example, in a Dec 9 press release, announced sales revenue of RM4.8 billion (an increase of 294 percent), and profit after tax surging by 20 times (2,000% increase) to RM2.4 billion, an obscene net profit margin of 50 percent over sales.

These figures are only for the period Sept 1 to Nov 30 and compared to the same period last year. M Shanmugam wrote in The Star on Dec 19 that between the peak months of August and September, the top four glove companies had a combined market capitalisation of RM203 billion, an increase in wealth (due to rise in share price) of RM167 billion.

To be fair, we should keep in mind this wealth and profit does not just accrue to the glove companies, i.e. its major shareholders, directors, and top management, who run the company, but to all major investors especially GLCs and government funds.

Any transgression should be equally shared by these silent major shareholders, including of course regulatory and enforcement authorities vested with the power to influence decision-making. It seems there is an eerie coincidence between the glove makers' record incomes and record Covid-19 outbreaks.

As if to match the super incomes, we now hear of the horrendous squalid conditions and ill-treatment of foreign workers, the very people who helped realise these windfall profits.

In the said press release, the managing director of Top Glove proudly paid tribute to them: “Much of the credit must now go to our dedicated workforce of 21,000 who have worked very hard, smart, and fast to ensure our gloves reach those who need it the most, despite several operational challenges”.

I smell super hypocrisy here. It is super ironic, that a company that claims to “gloving people and protecting lives across the globe” would do exactly the opposite to its workforce, especially in breaking Covid-19 SOPs, as now revealed by the enforcement authorities.

Top Glove said they will now spend up to RM170 million to improve working conditions for the period stretching up to 2022; a pittance or just pocket money if compared to the wealth and profits earned, in just the recent period.

Much has been written of how foreign workers are unfairly treated, literally even worse than animals. All I can add is that even hardcore prison inmates will vehemently protest if they were asked to trade places with the facilities/treatment provided to foreign workers.

And foreign workers slog up to 16 hours a day to break even. Maybe this swapping of places could be the best solution to prevent crime, and at the same time reward foreign workers.

Shameful defence

Of course, the policymakers, the ruling class, and the elites will retort that these companies are world-renowned, a successful showcase of Malaysia’s Vision 2020, provide jobs, and most importantly fill the nation’s coffers to help the ever-ungrateful and complaining rakyat.

But why, may I ask, are these corporates so unwilling to spend less than one percent of their super wealth and profit generated in just one period to provide what are basic human needs, never mind the law? How much more wealth do they want before they can open their hearts?

Don’t they realise by spending such pittance, they could have earned so much more in productivity, and truly live up to their vision, mission, and CSR mottos? Furthermore, this money will just be a fraction of defending themselves against the brickbats, loss of goodwill, loss of major overseas markets, and so on.

Why pay consultants and window dressers to perpetuate untruths? The US, for example, need not do their own surreptitious investigations, it is now being offered on a silver platter by the Malaysian government.

When caught out, one company representative said this is all the fault of foreign workers for the squalid conditions, their dirty habits, and lifestyle, and they hardly complained. Now a nation of people is condemned. It was laughable that after booting out Yabaraj, Top Glove claimed to have hired consultants to advise how to handle whistleblowers. A top KLSE company doesn’t have in-house employee relations expertise?

Time and tide waits for no man. The tide of major importers of gloves reviewing their contracts based on human rights abuse has been unleashed. Glove companies should not drag for years their promise of incrementally improving worker conditions.

It is hoped that Top Glove, the world’s largest producer, takes the lead and acts immediately before the tsunami of international backlash consumes the glove industry and the nation’s economy.

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RAMAN LETCHUMANAN was director, Environment/Conservation, Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment (1993-2000), head of Environment/Haze/Disaster Management, Asean Secretariat, Jakarta (2000-2014), and senior fellow at S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (2014-2016). He is a subscriber of Malaysiakini. Email: raman.asean@gmail.com. - Mkini

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.