Former human resources minister M Kula Segaran said it was now possible that more countries would apply the same sanctions against Top Glove Corp Bhd, similar to that of the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP). If this issue was left unresolved, the problem could also spread to other companies and later other industries.
Kula said that during his tenure as minister, he had town hall sessions with glove manufacturers and had warned them about the possibility of sanctions and also urged them to comply by cleaning up their supply chains and ensuring that no elements of forced labour existed.
“I went to the US to meet with the head of the CBP to ensure that we could work with them to clean up any elements of forced labour. This is why I was so adamant about amending our labour laws. Most of them are inadequate and outdated,” he said.
He reiterated that he had initiated a special independent committee on foreign worker management led by former Court of Appeal judge Hishamudin Yunus.
This committee had produced a report with 40 recommendations which he then presented to the Cabinet for discussion, Kula said.
These included the establishment of the home ministry as the single authority for foreign worker management and the development of an end-to-end, single online system for the recruitment of foreign labour.
He said the most significant proposal was for the abolition of outsourcing licences for labour supply, which would have brought an end to third-party service providers or agents.
“Not one proposal or recommendation has been implemented. Worse, that report was never made public,” he said.
Kula hopes the home ministry will make immediate changes so as to eradicate forced labour as it involves some of Malaysia’s biggest companies that provide thousands of jobs.
He also urged the home ministry to hand over the management of foreign workers to the human resources ministry and for the independent committee’s report to be revisited.
In 2018, Kula had denied an allegation in a British media report that migrant workers at Top Glove were subjected to forced labour, forced overtime and debt bondage.
He said at the time, they had worked within the framework of the law and there was nothing wrong with what the company had done.
Recently, the CBP directed personnel at all US ports of entry to begin seizing disposable gloves produced by Top Glove.
The CBP said it had found “sufficient information” to believe the glove manufacturer used forced labour in the production of disposable gloves in Malaysia.