Indonesia maid issue to be finalised after Raya

by pekwan on Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 Indonesian maids Local Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 06:53:00
Mahmood: Maid’s salary and agents fees are two key aspects to to be finalisedA REVISED mechanism in the hiring and recruiting of Indonesian maids will only be known when all the stakeholders - including both Malaysian and Indonesian authorities — meet after the festive season later this month to finalise matters. To begin with, the authorities have not agreed on a fixed minimum wage, given that a mutually agreeable salary range has yet to be agreed on for local employers.
Ministry of Home Affairs secretary-general Datuk Mahmood Adam said two key aspects on the agenda of that meeting will be the salary range that local employers and the maids agree on, and the fees currently charged by the agents handling these maids from the both countries.
“Right now, we have not agreed on the RM600 fixed sum (proposed by the Indonesian Embassy) as we have yet to establish a salary range. We need to finalise this at the meeting after Hari Raya,” said Mahmood.
He was responding to the call by Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) to abolish the exorbitant processing, recruitment and agency fees, which currently is between RM6,000 and RM8,500, borne by employers when hiring new maids, if a fixed minimum wage was decided by the government.
“The agency fees too will be discussed at the meeting which will be attended by MTUC, Human Resources Ministry and the Malaysian Association of Foreign Maid Agencies (PAPA) and our counterpart(Indonesia),” he said.
Pressed further on the chances of dropping the processing fees he said it will be discussed at the forthcoming meeting.
“I don’t want to raise false hopes but it will be definitely raised,” Mahmood assured.
Malay Mail had reported yesterday that MTUC had said the RM600 wage proposal by the Indonesian Embassy was acceptable for employers based on a study it conducted in the Klang Valley six months ago.
However, the employers had insisted that should a minimum wage be fixed, then, the authorities should do away with the processing fees, levied on them when hiring new maids.
Besides that, employers would also have to fork out an additional RM450 yearly for the renewal of visas, which applies to all maids.
MTUC believes that it would be more appropriate for authorities to charge the employers a minimal fee for essential areas like medical tests and air fares, while they cancelled the other excessive fees.
On the other hand, Human Resources Ministry was also firm that wages of Indonesian maids be determined by market forces, and not by any third party.
On Sept 4, the Ministry had said all foreign and local domestic maids in the country could expect to enjoy one rest day a week before the end of the year.
Besides, these domestic maids would be given the flexibility to choose and even accumulate their rest days.Currently, only Filipino maids enjoy a rest day, that is Sunday to help them fulfill their religious obligation.
The labour sector consists of more than 320,000-odd foreign domestic maids, of which the bulk comes from Indonesia.
The rest are from the Philippines (15,000) while Cambodia, Vietnam and Sri Lanka in total, make up some 2,000 domestic maids.