In debating the King’s address today, he cited Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s remark that mega-corporations were opposing the government’s plan to increase the minimum wage when he met them.
“I would like to ask, is the prime minister a representative of the mega-corporations or the people?”
“If you ask the mega-corporations (to increase wages), of course, they won’t. That is why you need labour unions,” he added.
Recently, human resources minister M Saravanan had said a minimum wage of “around RM1,500 a month” was expected to be implemented before the end of this year. He said the new rate had yet to be finalised as the ministry was awaiting Cabinet approval.
Anwar said the history of political economy had shown that when workers formed unions, corporations would treat them better.
“Therefore serious efforts need to be undertaken to revive unions, which had been killed off 10 to 20 years ago.”
The labour movement was weakened when Dr Mahathir Mohamad was the fourth prime minister, as he was leading the industrialisation of the national economy by opening it to foreign investors.
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