Union to bring Petronas to court in interest of S’wakian employees
BINTULU: Sarawak Kapenas, the employee union of Petronas’ non-executive staff, has called off all negotiations with the Petronas management.
They will now be pursuing legal action to safeguard the interests and rights of all Sarawakian employees.
Sarawak Kapenas chairman Musa Bakeri said employees were disturbed by Petronas’ unjust act in refusing to consider Sarawak Kapenas’ proposal, despite the fact that members had agreed to the management’s request to reconvene negotiations on March 18 and April 9.
The proposal demanded management to clarify two major points – first, employee job empowerment in the new Collective Agreement (CA) and second, to implement sliding scale in the salary adjustment for employees, instead of flat rate.
“But all they did was give vague promises and reasons to conduct feasibility studies on minor items like laundry and meal allowances. Seriously? Are we exploring new oil fields?” Musa questioned.
He revealed that the problem began when negotiations to allocate conditions for workers performing additional duties in the new CA had been perpetuated by the management.
“For example, working hours for offshore employees should be reflected in the CA and any changes should be agreed upon between Kapenas and the management.
“But it turns out that the management maintained the work schedule as outside the CA.
“It is unacceptable when they claimed that the worker has no say on how it should be implemented, because it is not stated in the CA.
“Members now have to perform duties that are outside the ambit of Kapenas’ current terms and conditions of services.
“Currently many of those higher graded employees who are not union members have to work additional duties without protection,” he told New Sarawak Tribune yesterday, adding that they could no longer tolerate and turn a blind eye to the matter.
“There is no basis for management to claim that it is a non-bargainable item under Sec 13(f) Industrial Relations Act 1967.
“If we bow to their demands, this would open their way to allocate any department tasks and duties to everyone,” he added.
“On the other hand, it is unfortunate that Kapenas could not have a say for those employees who are not members and not covered with CA.”
One glaring example was the revoke on allowance for East Malaysian workers.
Such move, claimed Musa, was pertinent to Petronas’ standing plan to slowly remove and erode the rights and benefits of Sarawakian workers.
“Their stance would slowly and surely remove and erode the rights of our members in Sarawak.
“Previously, the allowance was entitled for members because the union committee was only focusing onlocal senior employees.
“Removing the allowance definitely has impeded the new and junior employees to enjoy the allowance since it is no longer entitled to them,” he stressed.
Illustrating their first negotiation with management in August last year as a tricky deal, Musa revealed that members had been imposed with moratorium and incessant pressure to sign the CA as they had been given a short period of time that limited them to seek mandate.
This included imposing an increment of 6.85 percent for Sarawakian employees, compared to 7.25 percent for Sabahans and West Malaysians, if members refused to sign the CA.
“During our first negotiation in August, 2018, we were given a window of time to communicate and seek mandate among members.
“But they had pushed and insisted us to accept, stating that was the best offer they could give.
“In fact, they even threatened us that we might lose the chance and warned there will be no such high offer again if we refused to sign the CA at that point of time,” he elaborated.
“When management imposed to offer us lower than other regions, we responded for moresalary increment from 7.25 percent up to minimum of 10 percent, which later they reinstated the offer back to 7.25 percent,” he recalled.
Musa was also aware of the management’s blatant attempt to call upon the Ministry of Human Resources whereby they were asked by senior management to write an apology letter.
“The management refused to negotiate with our negotiation team unless we sign the CA and we are aware that they run to the Ministry of Human Resources to pressure us,” he revealed.
Under such circumstances, Musa opined that there was a need for the state government to form its Human Resources Ministry to ensure that every worker enjoyed a decent standard of living.
“While there are many issues involving labour and employment that need to be resolved by the federal government, at the heart of it is the need to ensure worker’s rights are protected.
“By forming the ministry, this could enable to facilitate worker’s issues by acting as the bridge between workers, employers and trade union. Particularly, labour issues related to the blue-collar and low-skilled Sarawakian workers.
“Currently, we can only report to the labour department which is under federal government, its Human Resource Ministry,” he explained.
With the current DUN sitting, Musa expressed hope for the state to address Sarawak labour issue along with the pursuanceof MA63.
“We have high hopes for the management yet what we get at the end of the day are intimidation, bullying and disappointment,” Musa said.
