Malaysia Rejects Indonesian Migrant Workers' Minimum Wage

The prosperity of Indonesian workers who work in the informal sector in Malaysia apparently will not yet improve. The reason for this is that the Malaysian government still rejects Indonesia's proposal regarding setting the minimum wage for workers in the informal sector."Because the country doesn't acknowledge a minimum wage system," said Foreign Affairs Minister Hassan Wirajuda after delivering an annual speech at his office yesterday (8/1). The result is, he said, that wages received by Indonesian migrant workers (TKI) are only based on negotiations with employers.

This is in line with the market mechanism and has caused the position of TKI who work in construction and plantation as well as house maids to be very weak and prone to abuse. This market mechanism makes TKIs' incomes lower compared to that of more-skilled workers from other countries.Malaysia acknowledged its country does not apply a minimum wage system. However, said Foreign Affairs Minister Syed Hamid Albar, this did not mean there was discrimination that would cause losses to informal sector TKIs. "This is a matter of the basics that we practice. We don't discriminate between Malaysian workers and those from other countries," he told Tempo via telephone.Albar said he realized that the TKI issue often created tense relations between the two countries.

However, he confirmed that the Malaysian government never plans to lower the incomes of workers from Indonesia. Wahyu Susilo, Migrant Care's policy analyst, said he will continue pushing the government to pay more attention to the fate of TKIs. One of the efforts he has asked for is that this issue be made into an agenda to be discussed at the annual meeting between President Yudhoyono and Prime Minister Badawi. "There shouldn't be any chitchat. The meeting must become a momentum in the protection of TKIs in Malaysia," he stressed.

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