PETALING JAYA: A glove manufacturer in Kajang has been slapped with a seven-day closure notice by the health ministry for failing to comply with Covid-19 preventive measures.
A multi-agency raid today found 781 workers living behind the factory in two blocks of shipping containers stacked three stories high, a violation of the Workers’ Minimum Standards of Housing and Amenities Act.
Human Resources Minister M Saravanan, who was among those who joined the raid, confirmed that 759 of the 781 workers were foreign nationals.
Saravanan told Astro Awani he was shocked that the workers could live in such filthy and terrible conditions. “I call this ‘modern slavery’. I’m very sad to see such conditions … although we have seen it during British colonisation,” he was quoted as saying.
The closure notice states that the factory must be closed from Dec 24 to Dec 30 as “it was in a condition that may lead to the start or the spread of infectious diseases to the public” under the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act.
A source in the Labour Department described the accommodations as “very dirty” and said the workers were living in “tight and crowded” conditions. “They are just living in containers. That’s a problem,” he told FMT. “If the space is meant for 100 people, they (the company) squeezed in 400.”
The factory was also found to be in violation of the Street, Drainage and Building Act for erecting a building (the containers) without permission from Kajang Municipal Council.
The Labour Department source said the company had not applied for approval to convert the containers into accommodation. A certificate of accommodation is a key requirement under the minimum housing standards law.
“Companies need to get permission from the local council if they want to build any accommodation and then they can apply for the certificate of accommodation from us,” the labour official said. “Even if they say it is temporary accommodation, they still need to plan this with the local councils.”
Enforcement of the minimum housing standards law started on Nov 26. It sets out minimum space requirements for workers’ accommodation, basic facilities and safety and hygiene standards.
A company representative refused to comment on the raid.
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