KOTA KINABALU: Employers and industry players were yesterday urged to give their constructive feedback and views on the minimum wage to the secretary of the National Wages Consultative Council (NWCC) before April 30, 2014.
Human Resource Minister Dato Sri Richard Riot anak Jaem said the findings would be used to fine-tune the minimum wage policy.
“Please help us by giving proposals to fine-tune this implementation of the minimum wage,” he said during the launch of the Sabah-level Minimum Wages Clinic held at the Magellan Sutera Resort near here yesterday..
Riot explained that the minimum wage policy was enforced in January this year and so far, his ministry had been bombarded with complaints from both employers and employees.
“We received over 1,000 complaints…employees call us to complain that their employers have not complied with the minimum wage policy and employers have called us to say that they didn’t have the means to comply,” he said.
Despite the complaints received, no action will be taken on employers who have yet to comply with the policy, he said.
“We will not take any action until the Minimum Wages Order is reviewed,” he said.
The Minimum Wages Order would be reviewed possibly in July this year.
“The Minimum Wages Order has to be reviewed once in every two years. This review is mandated by the National Wages Consultative Council Act 2011. Since the Minimum Wages Order was gazetted in 2012, this means that the Order has to be reviewed in 2014 and a new Order has to be in force in 2015,” he explained.
Riot also denied an online report on an online news portal that said 100 employers would face action for failing to comply with the new policy.
“As far as we know, we have never heard of this,” he said, suggesting that the minister was likely to have been misquoted.
He reiterated that harsh action would not be taken against employers who failed to comply with the policy for now and when they received complaints from employees on their employers’ failure to comply, both parties would be called to come up with a win-win solution.
“We prefer not to take action until the review in July 2014,” he said.
Deputy Human Resources Minister, Datuk Ismail Abdul Muttalib on Sunday said that 100 employers from throughout the country would face stern action if found to have not implemented the minimum wage.
He said the employers were identified after 600 employees lodged complaints against them since the 2012 National Minimum Wage Order was enforced on Jan 1, 2014.
Under Section 43 of the National Wages Consultative Council Act 2011, any employer found guilty of the offence would be fined up to RM20,000 or jailed not exceeding five years.