Foreign worker ban at Malaysian airports: Report
Malaysia will ban foreign workers from serving customers at all its airports in a bid to reduce migrant labour in the country.
By Agencies |
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia will ban foreign workers from serving customers at all its airports in a bid to reduce migrant labour in the country, according to a report on Wednesday.
The move comes after calls by unions to halt the hiring of foreign workers at airports, saying they could pose a security threat.
"All airports, especially the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), are to only use local manpower in jobs involving interfacing with tourists," Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak told The News Straits Times newspaper.
Home Affairs Minister Radzi Sheikh Ahmad said the ban was part of plans to cut the nation's reliance on foreign labour.
"This is... one of the steps towards reducing our dependency on foreign workers," he was quoted as saying by the paper.
"We want workers that tourists meet when they arrive, those pushing trolleys and taking their bags, to be locals," he added. "We even want those who clean toilets to be locals."
Malaysian Airlines Employee Union President Alias Aziz said the vast majority of foreign workers at KLIA, mostly from Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan, did not have proper security clearances.
"With Malaysians, we know who they are because they have an identity card and we can carry out background checks, but with foreigners who use other identification it is very hard," Alias told reporters.
"This means we can't really trust the foreign worker greeting passengers to be who they say they are or even those working in sensitive parts of the airport," he added.
Malaysia is home to an estimated 2.6 million legal and illegal foreign workers who are mostly employed in the manufacturing and agriculture sectors as well as in domestic work.
The government is in the midst of drafting legislation to tighten requirements on hiring foreign workers and protect salary payments, as well as set up a mechanism to deal with complaints.
The move comes after calls by unions to halt the hiring of foreign workers at airports, saying they could pose a security threat.
"All airports, especially the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), are to only use local manpower in jobs involving interfacing with tourists," Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak told The News Straits Times newspaper.
Home Affairs Minister Radzi Sheikh Ahmad said the ban was part of plans to cut the nation's reliance on foreign labour.
"This is... one of the steps towards reducing our dependency on foreign workers," he was quoted as saying by the paper.
"We want workers that tourists meet when they arrive, those pushing trolleys and taking their bags, to be locals," he added. "We even want those who clean toilets to be locals."
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Malaysian Airlines Employee Union President Alias Aziz said the vast majority of foreign workers at KLIA, mostly from Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan, did not have proper security clearances.
"With Malaysians, we know who they are because they have an identity card and we can carry out background checks, but with foreigners who use other identification it is very hard," Alias told reporters.
"This means we can't really trust the foreign worker greeting passengers to be who they say they are or even those working in sensitive parts of the airport," he added.
Malaysia is home to an estimated 2.6 million legal and illegal foreign workers who are mostly employed in the manufacturing and agriculture sectors as well as in domestic work.
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The government is in the midst of drafting legislation to tighten requirements on hiring foreign workers and protect salary payments, as well as set up a mechanism to deal with complaints.
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