The 800,000-strong Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) today vehemently denied that it is ready to “wage a war” against the government over the proposed amendments to the labour laws.

“There is absolutely no truth in this statement and it does not represent the official stand of the congress,” said its secretary-general, Abdul Halim Mansor.

He was commenting on a statement by MTUC’s financial secretary Alias Awang Ibrahim at the just-concluded PKR national congress that the MTUC was ready to wage a war against the government for failing to protect the rights of workers.

Abdul Halim reiterated that the MTUC was apolitical and was only concerned about the welfare of workers in the country.

“We have no political agenda and we are just committed to protecting the workers' rights enshrined in the country’s labour laws,” he told Bernama in Petaling Jaya.

He said Alias Awang had spoken in his capacity as a member of the PKR Gombak Division and not the MTUC.  

“We are definitely distancing ourselves from the statement expressed by Alias Awang as it was his personal view and has nothing to do with the congress’s official stand," he added.

Abdul Halim said that while it was true that the MTUC was unhappy with the way the government was handling the amendments to the labour laws, it did not mean that it would resort to such drastic measures to achieve its objectives.

“We are a very mature workers' organisation and all our actions are very carefully formulated to ensure that we succeed in our struggle to protect the rights of the 10 million workers in the country,” he said.

He said the MTUC council, representing all affiliates, had drawn up an action plan to ensure that the amendments did not erode workers' rights.