Cuepacs unhappy with decision on contract staff

The Star

MALACCA: Cuepacs has voiced grave concern over the Government’s move to change the employment status of contract employees to daily-wage earners.

“This is not what we asked for. We wanted government contract workers to be absorbed into the civil service. Instead, they are now faced with the disadvantage of being employed as daily-wage earners,” said Cuepacs president Omar Osman.

Describing the move as “cruel and unjust”, he said the congress had recently received several complaints from government contract workers about the matter.

“I have received complaints from contract workers, who have served for seven to 10 years, saying that their employment status had been changed to that of a daily-wage earner,” he told reporters at a two-day Cuepacs leadership seminar here yesterday.

Cuepacs has 1.5 million members nationwide, with 45,000 employed as government-contracted staff.

He noted that the move would place those affected in a precarious situation, as they would now lose out on employment benefits while lacking job security as a daily-wage earner.

“The move could be described as cruel and unjust as these workers have families to feed and look after.”

Omar also said there were recent complaints that some contract workers had not been paid their salary for four months.

“We have about two million foreigners working here and at times they seem to be treated better than local employees,” he added.

On a separate issue, Omar said that Cuepacs wanted the Government to standardise the civil servant’s cost of living allowance for the entire country from the current RM100 to RM300 per month to RM500.

He added a high-level meeting between Cuepacs and Public Service Department director-general Tan Sri Ismail Adam had been scheduled for July 29 in Putrajaya to discuss these issues.