IPOH, Feb 16 — Six workers from a foreign cosmetic company in Jelapang here demanded the employer to pay their wages, which have been pending for eight months.

Ipoh Barat MP M. Kulasegaran, who is representing the workers as their lawyer, said that the company needs to pay RM9,600 per worker. 

“The workers were not paid salary for eight months and the last salary they received was RM1,200. 

“All of the workers are from the B40 group with low income. They have family and dependents to take care. How are they going to survive working without salary?” he told reporters when met outside the Ipoh Labour Department office here today. 

Kulasegaran said the company also failed to pay Employment Provident Fund (EPF) and Social Security Organisation (Socso) contributions for the workers despite deducting from their salaries for the last two years. 

He said that they have filed a report with the Labour Department office to investigate the employer and take immediate action. 

“Since the company is owned by a foreigner, we are afraid they might close the company and vanish without paying their salaries.

“There have been a lot of similar cases as this in the country. This is a serious issue,” said Kulasegaran.

He urged the Human Resources Ministry to be more proactive in providing skilling, re-skilling, up-skilling and cross-skilling programmes to all workers in the country.

“What happened here is these six workers were not given this opportunity. This is why the government should give subsidies and incentives to the workers so that they can be part of these programmes.

“The Industrial Training Institute throughout the country only has 60 per cent enrollment. When they have skills they can look for other jobs easily,” he said. 

Manimekalai Sinnashanmugam, 49, who has been working in the company for 16 years, said that this is not the first time the company had failed to pay their salary. 

“We had this salary issue for some time. At times they will delay the payment for two months and some time they will pay it in portion,” she said. 

Another worker, M. Krishnaveni, 50 said that the company’s administration staff told them to leave the job when they requested for their salaries. 

“Whenever we ask for our salary they will say the owner is not contactable and ask us to leave the job,” she said. 

She also said her husband had an accident and she is the sole breadwinner in the family. 

Another worker Rozita Mohd Noor, 53, said that they have housing and car loans to pay. 

“All this while we were surviving with the moratorium and i-Sinar aid. However, we don’t have money anymore. We want the company to settle all our wages,” she said.