REOPENING OF MALAYSIAN LABOUR MARKETA new deal or another compromise with syndication?

Since fixing the schedule for resuming the discussion on reopening of the Malaysian labour market for Bangladeshis, the biggest question striking the migration sector is whether there will be a new agreement, ensuring transparency, or it would be another compromise with syndication, offering opportunities to selective recruiting agencies for sending workers to Malaysia.

A Bangladesh delegation led by Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Adviser Dr Asif Nazrul reached Malaysia on Tuesday. The adviser is scheduled to meet Malaysian Human Resources Minister, Steven Sim Chee Keong, and Home Minister, Saifuddin Nasution Ismail, today to discuss the reopening of the market.

Besides, the third meeting of the Joint Working Group (JWG) will be held on 21-22 May in Dhaka and Chief Adviser Prof Muhammad Yunus and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim will meet in mid-July and discuss the issue.

The sector insiders expect that these two events will help open door of the Malaysian market for the Bangladeshi labourers but they stressed on confirming a fair negotiation, preferring more on quality migration instead of looking for quantity and ensuring entries of around 17,000 workers who couldn’t go to Malaysia even after completing all necessary formalities.

“There are many questions regarding the probable outcome of the meeting. We have been demanding the introduction of a fresh agreement instead of the old ones which allowed a syndicate to make money through deceiving workers. The Bangladesh delegation must negotiate properly and present the logic for signing a new agreement and scrap the Foreign Workers Centralised Management System (FWCMS),” Fakhrul Islam, former joint secretary general of Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA), told the Daily Sun.

Malaysia recruits workers from 15 countries, including Bangladesh, but no other country except Bangladesh, allows it to select recruiting agencies of their own choice.

He said they have enough reasons to be concerned as no one from the government has assured them of scrapping the earlier deal, while the old syndicate members have become active again and are consulting with different quarters of Malaysia.

“They (syndicate members) are demanding 5 million ringgits or Tk14 crore to include each member in their team for sending workers to Malaysia. We have submitted memorandums to the office of the expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment adviser and the chief adviser to eradicate syndication and reopen the Malaysian labour market but still don’t know what they are doing,” the former BAIRA leader added.

According to him, some recruiting agency members like Kazi Mofiz and Mansur Ahmed Kalam have joined with Aminul Islam Bin Abdul Nor and Ruhul Amin Swapon and they are contacting different individuals of the government.

Migration sector insiders said there is a strong syndicate active in Malaysia to exploit Bangladeshi workers and they will put their best effort to impose illogical conditions for securing undue advantage in the process.

Associate Director (Migration and Youth Platform) of BRAC, Shariful Hasan, said every time when the Malaysian labour market was opened for Bangladeshis, assurances were made to establish a corruption free system but later the reality seemed different for the workers.

“The Malaysian market was closed for a long period of time since the first opening of it in the 90s. If it remains closed for some more months I don’t see any problem in it. But if it is opened with the same old system, it will formally allow a group of greedy businessmen to deceive our workers,” he told the Daily Sun.

Shariful Hasan said Bangladesh has no way to encourage syndication.

“If after all the previous bad experiences, the interim government agrees to reopen the market under the old agreement, there will be nothing more pathetic than this,” he added.

The migration expert also urged the government to send 17,000 workers who couldn’t go to Malaysia on a priority basis.

Asked about the agenda of the meeting between expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment adviser and Malaysian human resources minister and home minister, Sarwoer Alam, deputy secretary of the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment, said they will try to reopen the market for all the agencies.

“Our target will be on the reopening of the labour market. Besides, we will raise the issue of regularisation of the undocumented Bangladeshi workers living in Malaysia,” he said.

Over the past 15 years, Malaysia’s labour market has been shut down three times. Every time the issue has come forward regarding a syndicate. Various allegations of irregularities, corruption and bribery have surfaced but no agency owner involved in it has even been brought to book.

The Malaysian labour market has remained closed for Bangladeshis since 31 May last year.

Some 8,98,970 Bangladeshis are currently working in Malaysia, according to official estimation. This is the highest number of foreign workers in the Southeast Asian country after Indonesians and Nepalis.

Malaysia is the fourth highest remittance sending country to Bangladesh.