Its secretary-general Kamarul Baharin Mansor offered the union’s help in tightening the guidelines, saying MTUC members were familiar with workplace practices to help prevent future clusters.

“Are the workplace clusters happening because employers did not adhere to the SOPs or are the rules themselves not suitable for a particular workplace?

“If this is the case, then there is a failure on the part of the employers and action must be taken.

“The daily cases contributed by workplace clusters are not fair to workers who abide by SOPs but are not allowed to work, thereby losing their source of income,” he said in a statement today.

Kamarul also urged the government to reopen more economic sectors after June 28, when the current lockdown is slated to end.

“Most workers can no longer survive in this situation of not having any source of income. Reopening other economic sectors will be fair to daily wage earners.”

He also said the union had received reports of an exponential rise in retrenchments, urging Putrajaya to formulate a “workers plan” for those who have been laid off.

He added that MTUC had proposed to the government to enact a regulation to prevent retrenchments since the first movement control order last year.

“If the government can’t help workers in this difficult period, don’t stop people from working,” he said, also urging for those in the B40 and M40 groups to be given RM1,200 a month by the government.