Three hundred workers of a factory producing spare parts for the local car industry picketed outside their premises this morning to protest the management's delay in endorsing their third collective agreement (CA).

The company, which is a subsidiary of DRB-Hicom, produces spare parts for the national cars Waja and Proton, and has 700 workers.

The CA was expected to be effective on Jan 1 this year and was submitted to the company, PHN Industry Sdn Bhd, in Shah Alam, Kuala Lumpur for negotiation last October.

However, after two meetings, the management did not offer their side of the agreement and instead announced a deadlock, Malaysian Trades Union Congress financial secretary A Sivananthan told malaysiakini today.

"The management simply announced a deadlock and that has made the workers really unhappy. I mean, this is a subsidiary of DRB- Hicom, a government-backed company. Why are they treating the workers so badly," he said.

Among other things, the CA proposed a review in the system of job-grading, increase in welfare benefits and a 15 to 20 percent increase in the workers' annual salary.

The workers are also not happy that the company has withdrawn the check-out of union dues, where salary is automatically deducted by the management and the money is directed to the in-house union to conduct activities.

"They have suddenly stop deducting the check-out dues to the union which the management has been doing it for six years," said Sivananthan.

"They may be legally right but this does not augur well for the industrial relations condition in the factory. Furthermore, no announcement or consultation with workers had been made regarding this, " he added.

The group is planning to raise their problems with the Industrial Relations Department soon, said Sivananthan.

Meeting successful

Meanwhile, MTUC secretary-general G Rajasegaran told malaysiakini that the tripartite meeting between the Human Resources Ministry, the Malaysian Employers' Federation (MEF), the Malaysian Agriculture Producers Association (Mapa), MTUC and Cuepacs was held successfully today.

"The meeting was good. We are satisfied with the atmosphere," said Rajasegaran, when contacted.

"I must say the minister is rather genuine in wanting to resolve problems between employers and employees," he added.

Rajasegaran said that several requests by way of a memorandum submitted to Human Resources Minister Fong Chan Onn by the MTUC last October were duly met.

This includes increasing the number of officers to handle industrial relation cases from nine last year to 15 this year. Officers from other states were also brought in to ease the backlog in Kuala Lumpur, he added.

Rajasegaran reported that presently there are 1,484 cases still pending in the Industrial Court and 3,091 cases in the Industrial Relations Department. There are still 60 cases of union recognition pending at the ministry.

He said the discussion today included the setting-up of the Workers' Retrenchment Fund proposed by MTUC four years ago but rejected by employers.

According to Rajasegaran, Fong tried to coax the employers into accepting the idea by proposing a sliding scale on the amount contributed to the fund.

MEF and Mapa requested a two and half months to study the proposal.