Inhumane to dismiss workers during MCO, CMCO - MTUC

Any move to dismiss workers during the Movement Control Order (MCO) and Conditional Movement Control Order (C MCO) is an inhumane act.

Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) secretary-general J. Solomon described the action as an act of oppression against workers.

“The MTUC’s stance is clear that any action to dismiss workers during the MCO or CMCO is inhumane and intended to oppress workers.

"We also suspect there is a threat of dismissing the workers by using the excuse of failure to comply with the CMCO as part of a specific plan by employers to reduce the workforce," he told Astro AWANI.

He said this in response to a recent statement by the Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) that expects workers to continue to be dismissed after Aidilfitri a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Solomon added that the MTUC had expected such a thing to happen, thus proposing the government introduce the Emergency Employment Regulations (EER) that prohibits employers from dismissing or firing employees for certain periods of time.

He said the draft proposal could be drafted with the ministerial powers but to date, there has been no development on it.

“If the government implements the EER, there would be no dismissal, pay cuts and so on. We hope employers do not arbitrarily dismiss workers.

"What we see is that the actions of the unscrupulous employers prove that they are manipulating or taking advantage of the implementation of the MCO or CMCO for their own benefit," he said.