29/8/07
The third Parliament session for this year is proving to be a headache, at least as far as Human Resources Minister Dr Fong Chan Onn is concerned.
For the second consecutive day, the veteran politician has come under a no-holds-barred attack from the opposition in the Dewan Rakyat.
DAP MPs have been seeing red over the minister’s decision to table the Industrial Relations (Amendments) Bill yesterday, and during the third reading of the bill today, the tongue-lashing continued.
Leading the onslaught was Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang (DAP-Ipoh Timor) who called Fong an “irresponsible minister”.
He asked Fong to provide the number of cases which he has taken more than a year to refer to the Industrial Court. The minister has the powers to decide on whether to send cases of disputes between workers unions and employers to the Industrial Court.
Lim: Do you have the figures for the mountain of cases you have on your table?
Fong: I clear the cases when they come to my table. It depends on the legal adviser.
Lim: So you will wait for the legal adviser to refer a case to you? What if he takes five years? Will you wait for five years? You cannot run away from your responsibility by putting the blame on the legal adviser. This is ministerial irresponsibility. What kind of a stupid minister we have in Malaysia? Utterly ‘dunggu’.
This irked Badruddin Amiruldin (BN-Jerai), who demanded Lim to retract his words.
“I will withdraw the statement, but I will stress that he (Fong) is irresponsible and not so smart,” Lim responded.
Compensation issue
Following this, M Kulasegaran (DAP-Ipoh Barat) asked Fong why he did not take action against an Industrial Court chairperson named ‘Datuk Tan’ who has not delivered written judgments for eight months.
“Why was his tenure extended for a year despite his poor track record. Is it because he is your staunch supporter and good friend?” he asked.
Fong dismissed the allegation as baseless, saying he does not know the person who Kulasegaran was referring to.
However, this failed to pacify the DAP MP, who retorted that the minister should not deny the fact that he had extended the tenure of an ‘incompetent’ officer.
“Can you deny the fact that Datuk Tan’s tenure was extended to give him enough time to give written judgments?” he asked.
Kulasegaran also urged Fong to explain the 24-month capping of backwages for a worker who was dismissed without a just cause or excuse.
Subsection 30(6a) under Clause 22 of the bill states that in the event that backwages are to be given, such backwages shall not exceed 24 months’ backwages from the date of dismissal based on the last drawn salary of the person who has been dismissed without just cause or excuse.
“The proposed amendment to this bill is the weirdest I have seen to date. Ever since the bill was passed in 1967, there was no way for an employer to dismiss a worker without proper excuse, but we’re making way for that now,” said Kulasegaran, adding that the nation needs to thank Fong for the change.
“In the past, compensation was made based on the Industrial Court chairperson’s discretion, and the Industrial Court was never subjected to a set of laws when it comes to awarding compensation,” he said.
“The bill can make way for employers to sack their workers without giving a proper cause,” he added.
Responding to Kulasegaran, Fong said: “Last year, an Industrial Court chairperson made a judgment based on the 24-month cap guideline.
“We just want to standardise compensation so that employers will not be unfairly penalised by awarding unfixed amount of compensation,” he added.
POSTED BY kula ON 08.29.07 @ 9:10 am |
1 Comment »
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the MPs from BN is so weak! this is their stupid habit laa.. almost all malaysian is know it.
Comment by tio tio — September 7, 2007 @ 4:14 pm
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