Bank account for maids
BY M.KRISHNAMOORTHY AND SIOW YUEN CHING
KUALA LUMPUR: More than 300,000 employers of domestic maids will soon have to open bank accounts in their maids' names and pay the salary into the accounts monthly.
With this, employers will not be allowed to hold the maids' salaries.
“There have been a lot of complaints by international agencies that employers were not paying foreign maids their wages,” Human Resources Minister Datuk Fong Chan Onn told The Star.
It will cover all employers of foreign and local maids, he added.
Dr Fong said the rationale for the inclusion of the clause were:
PROTECTION on payment of wages to maids;
ELIMINATE instances of employers keeping their wages; and
PREVENT cases of non-payment of wages.
“By making a clear-cut policy on this, domestic maids will be protected and they cannot claim that their wages were not paid,” he said.
The opening of bank accounts will be mandatory in the amendments proposed to the Employment Act, 1955, due to be tabled in Parliament next month.
The proposed clause under Section 57A, Wages of Domestic Servant, states:
“It will be mandatory for employers of a domestic servant to pay the wages of domestic servants into the domestic servant’s bank account.”
Currently, there is no stipulation in the Act requiring employers to pay their domestic servants' wages into a bank account.
The Malaysian Foreign Workers Association president Datuk Raja Zulkepley Dahlan said some illegal agencies did not pay maids and this move would prevent such cases.
Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) secretary general G. Rajasekaran supported the proposed change and said that it was aimed at safeguarding the domestic maids.
“The bank account will ensure that the maid receives the money,” he added.
Bank officer Tan Chow Sin, 51, said he had been doing this since the time he first had a maid and was comfortable with the arrangement.
“She will feel secure as she will be able to see her hard-earned money safe in her account, while my wife and I can sleep peacefully knowing that she won't run away,” he said.
Professional services manager P. Seran who has employed maids for several years said that with the banks now open for five days, it would be cumbersome for working employers to open the account, and withdraw and transfer the cash..
Ini satu undang2 yang berat sebelah...sepatutnya Kerajaan Malaysia give more protection to the employers..orang Malaysia sendiri..Akta ini akan memberi lebih keburukan kepada pihak Majikan..Tidak sedarkah mereka berapa ramai kes maid yang cabut lari berbanding dengan kes maid yang tak dapat gaji..Jikalau gaji terus dimasukkan ke akaun maid apa lagi yang tinggal ataupun gerenti pada majikan supaya maidnya tidak lari...katakan utk pulang beraya apakah majikan boleh harap maid akan kembali selepas cuti jika semua wang sudah ada ditangan.. Mengikut pengalaman selapas dah ada 6 orang maid...apa yang membuatkan mereka terikat utk tidak lari atau utk meneruskan kerja dengan kita ialah disebabkan wang...jika semuanya telah diberi tiada apa lagi bond antara majikan dan maid dan dia boleh angkat kaki bila2 masa..
