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KLANG: Another glove-making factory in Selangor was found to have forced its workers to live in cramped, windowless, and miserable conditions after a multi-agency operation in accommodation for foreign workers here.
Officials from the Klang City Council and Labor Department (MPK) set up the operation at the Klang factory and found workers housed in a warehouse that was divided into tiny rooms, each with 12 bunk beds.
One worker told FMT that while only 12 people were supposed to stay in the room, it typically accommodates up to 18, making physical distancing almost impossible.
Conditions were even worse in another warehouse a few hundred meters away. This had been converted into a hostel and an additional floor had been built above the ground floor to accommodate more beds.
At the back of the rooms was a line of showers and a pool of water a couple of meters from one of the beds had mosquito larvae floating on the surface. Both shelters were windowless and stuffy.
The short walk between the two makeshift shelters was littered with a huge pile of garbage and factory waste, an environmental hazard compounded by the fact that the landfill was a stone’s throw from the Klang River.
A company spokesperson tried to defend the accommodation, saying that the workers hardly complained and that the housing provided by the company was “much better” than some of the “horror stories” about the homes of other foreign workers.
“Although it is obviously not a five-star hotel, I would say that everyone has a room, they can shower, they can eat, they can socialize,” he said.
“Is there room for improvement? Certainly. I would say yes. Is it really bad? Of course, no. You (the media) saw it just now.
“It is an airy space. they have a lot of space to sit, socialize… There is room for improvement, but at the same time, I don’t hear them complain so much ”.
Today’s raid comes after a similar operation at another glove manufacturer in Kajang on Monday, in which the Health Ministry gave the factory a seven-day closure notice for failing to comply with Covid-19 preventive measures. .
The company operating today and Kajang’s are subsidiaries of a major Malaysian glove manufacturer.
Monday’s raid found 781 workers living behind the factory in two stacked three-story high container blocks. Since then, the company has denied that hundreds of its workers lived in conditions described by a minister as “modern slavery.”
Ili Syazwani Mohd Mashudi, an environmental health officer at the Klang district health office, told the FMT that the company received a compound of RM 1,000 for two offenses under the Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Act.
In addition to failing to guarantee physical distancing in its accommodations, the company also did not disinfect and disinfect the accommodations three times a day, nor did it record cleaning, as required.
The company risked receiving a seven-day shutdown notice if it committed three or more offenses under the Act, but said an inspection of the factory found it was in compliance with all relevant Covid-19 SOPs.
He also said the factory provided documentation that all of its workers were tested for Covid-19 and tested negative.
Mohd Asri Abdul Wahab, Deputy Director General (Operational) of the Labor Department, said the department would investigate whether the company had applied for approval to convert the warehouses into accommodation.
He noted that officials had to climb a ladder to reach the beds on the second floor in one of the shelters, which was a security risk.
Asri also noted that under the Minimum Standards of Housing and Services for Workers Act, employers must provide a mattress of at least four inches, a pillow and a blanket. The company did not meet all three.
He was unable to comment on viral claims on social media that workers were moved out of the shelter last night after news of the raid leaked.
The two officials also did not comment on the garbage piles between the two shelters, with media outlets later raising the question with a company spokesperson.
“Honestly, I’m not sure how to answer that,” the spokesman said. “We are not the ones who launched it. Maybe if we put some cameras there, we can figure out who’s doing it. “
