The Kuala Lumpur Industrial Court today presented the consent award to oil palm plantation workers and their employers, stating that their collective agreement guaranteeing minimum monthly wage could be a model for other agriculture sectors to emulate.

Industrial Court chairman Yussoff Ahmad said that the court is pleased that the two parties, National Union of Plantation Workers and Malaysian Agriculture Producers Association have resolved the issue of minimum wage while maintaining productivity-linked wages.

"This was not the first time that Mapa and NUPW have come to an agreement regarding wages. The new feature in this deal is that earnings are guaranteed at the end of the month," said Yussof.

"I hope that other agriculture sectors will follow the example of this collective agreement," he added.

The court stated that another case to be heard soon would concern the pineapple growers.

The "ground-breaking" agreement, which will affect about 45,000 workers in the oil palm sector, was witnessed by Human Resources Minister Dr Fong Chan Onn at his ministry in Jalan Damansara, Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday.

The deal, however, only applied to oil palm harvesters and mill workers and did not include other sectors such as rubber estate workers.

While it ended months of negotiation between the two parties, those who welcomed the decision also expressed regret that the base salary of RM325 was too low.

Yusoff, who chaired the panel together with S Sivagnanam, who represented Mapa and Syed Shahril Syed Mahmood, who represented NUPW, congratulated both parties.

Research confidential

Yesterday, a group of plantation workers who call themselves the Estate Workers Support Committee urged Mapa and NUPW to publicise findings of a research that was conducted by Universiti Malaya's economics faculty on the minimum wage issue.

They claimed that the findings may have proposed a higher monthly wage in line with the current market situation, taking into account the inflation rate and the country's economic growth.

Although the group welcomed the new deal, they were unhappy with the minimum wage of RM325 offered by Mapa, claiming that their proposed sum was RM750.

Mapa director Mohamad Audong who was present in court today told malaysiakini that the research, commissioned by Mapa, was made available to the Human Resources Ministry.

When asked if the research could be made public, Mohamad said that it is up to the ministry to disclose it.

"We have no rights to it. It is a confidential document now under the ministry," he said, after the court hearing.


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