MTUC S’wak, SBEU: Prioritise vaccination for workers in essential services, labour-intensive industries

Andrew Lo

KUCHING (May 31): The government must make it a priority to vaccinate workers involved in essential services as well as labour-intensive industries such as manufacturing and construction workers, said Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) Sarawak and Sarawak Bank Employees Union (SBEU) in a statement.

They pointed out that workplace clusters make up of 60 per cent of total new Covid-19 clusters.

“It must rope in all the medical clinics to assist in the vaccination programme, instead of just doing it at a few centres,” said the statement issued by Andrew Lo, who is secretary of MTUC Sarawak and chief executive officer of SBEU.

In addition, to expedite vaccination for workers in essential services, MTUC Sarawak and SBEU said Sarawak government should consider a total lockdown instead of state-imposed Movement Control Order (MCO) to manage the Covid-19 pandemic.

They said it was appalling that Sarawak’s revised MCO 3.0 is allowing businesses especially big factories with positive cases to continue operating as usual.

“Given that Covid-19 cases have escalated to more than 9,000 cases (in Malaysia) and record highs in Sarawak, the only sensible move is to announce a complete lockdown and provide wage subsidy for all workers in the private sector.

“Almost a year of half-baked measures, U-turns, the most confusing SOP (standard operating procedures) and chest thumping by ministers have led us to this dismal situation.

“All our sickness, deaths and economic pain have amounted to nothing. There are legitimate grounds for complains. This is the price we have to pay when our leaders failed us. We have to take our own initiatives, they cannot be depended upon,” they said.

Both MTUC Sarawak and SBEU also called on fellow Malaysians to comply with ever necessary measures to beat this pandemic even if it is means losing much of their liberties and conveniences.

“We hope it should not take more than one month. Otherwise we will die a slow and painful death.

“Even the Health Ministry director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah had resorted to appealing to the public to impose a ‘self-lockdown’,” he said.

He, however, noted a self-lockdown without income security is impossible for workers who are struggling to put food on the table, and with businesses and employers also need assistance.

“In this regard, we propose for the burden to be equally shared between government, employer and workers.

“The government should provide a 1/3 subsidy, employer to pay 1/3 and workers to sacrifice 1/3 of their wages, subject to minimum wage of RM1,200,” he said.

He added the government must also ensure food security for all, including unemployed workers and migrant workers.

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