Among the main beneficiaries of the Covid-19 pandemic are rubber glove manufacturers. Supplying 60% of the global demand for rubber gloves, our rubber glove manufacturers are able to capitalise on the current Covid-19 pandemic window of opportunity to increase output and, in the process, accumulate unprecedented gains.
It is our contention that they are beholden to subscribe to the ideals of social justice in sharing the profits that they so reap from the blood, sweat, tears, lives lost and bodies maimed of the working class.
Workers of the rubber glove manufacturers and those involved in the personal protective equipment sector are also “frontliners” in the quest to combat the pandemic. But, sadly, they have been reduced to being a nonentity in recognition of their sacrifices.
Working in a densely populated working environment, they were made to perform their contractual obligations without so much as a consideration of them also falling victims to infection. But toil they did irrespective of them being Malaysians or migrant workers.
It is an indisputable fact that glove manufacturers employ thousands of migrant workers all of whom incurred exorbitant recruitment costs in their country of origin in the dream of finding economic security in our country. Sadly, they remain entrapped in what has been referred to as bonded labour akin to modern slavery.
Having to work the maximum monthly 104 overtime hours, and on rest days and public holidays, effectively, without a weekly day off or sufficient rest to re-energise themselves, has reduced them to slaves to their goal of breaking out of debt bondage.
The latest case, of Top Glove Sdn Bhd and its subsidiary TG Medical Sdn Bhd being slapped with a “withhold release order” by the US Customs and Border Agency, seems to suggest that the problem of debt bondage remains unresolved in the said company. And we are inclined to believe that it would be a fact in all other sectors that depend on migrant guest workers.
Are the glove manufacturing employers minded to lift their migrant workers from the debt bondage that they are entrapped in? Are Top Glove Sdn Bhd and TG Medical Sdn Bhd committed to follow the decision of another glove company, WRP Asia Pacific, to make such remediation payments?
Are all other employers, regardless of the economic sector they are in, prepared to take the initiative to alleviate the plight of their migrant workers entrapped in debt bondage?
As they say, the ball is at their feet.
K Veeriah is the secretary for the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (Penang Division).
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.
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