Only workers in essential services allowed in office during EMCO, says minister

Only workers in essential services are allowed to leave their homes in enhanced movement control order (EMCO) areas to go to work while the EMCO is in force, says Human Resources Minister M Saravanan.

Saravanan issued the reminder today following the announcement that most parts of Selangor and certain localities in Kuala Lumpur will be placed under EMCO from July 3 to 16 due to the high number of Covid-19 cases in these two states.

“Therefore, employers are required to abide by this order and allow workers (in non-essential services) to work from home (WFH),” he said in a statement.

Saravanan also reminded employers to abide by the EMCO and SOPs, especially on the number of workers allowed in the office or other work places.

He said the human resources ministry had received many complaints from workers that their employers had threatened them with work termination if they refused to work from the office.

He advised workers to report such employers to the ministry by using the Working for Workers (WFW) application.

Apart from WFH-related complaints, the app covers 16 other categories of complaints involving various labour issues.

“The ministry gives attention to complaints received and will take the appropriate action,” Saravanan said.

He said 1,878 complaints were recorded by the WFW app between May 23 and yesterday regarding the issue of employers forbidding their workers to work from home.

Selangor had the most number of WFH-related complaints at 696, followed by Kuala Lumpur (505), Johor (196) and Penang (123).

Saravanan said 59 compounds for the violation of worker attendance capacity at the office or workplace were issued by the Labour Department of Peninsular Malaysia and Occupational Safety and Health Department between June 1 and July 1.