THE UNFAIR WELFARE PRACTICES TOWARDS FOREIGN WORKERS IN THE MALAYSIAN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
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Abstract
Foreign workers are considered as one of the main elements in the Malaysian construction industry. The foreign workers are regarded to be important and with the best of interest by contractors or employers. This is due to employing them at a minimal cost as compared to having local Malaysians. Nevertheless, the construction industry has been battered by chronic problems such as poor health and safety conditions, poor working
conditions and lack of quality, resulting in poor productivity and overall efficiency. Apart from the take-home salary that foreign workers receive, the welfare facilities and practices are vital as well in the whole ecosystem.
Decent welfare facilities and practices are important in keeping the morale and motivation of workers high thus influencing productivity. The objectives of this paper are to investigate the types of unfair welfare practices towards foreign construction workers, identify the critical factors contributing to unfair welfare’s practices, and recommend solutions on the improvements on the unfair welfare’s practices. The paper is segregated into two (2) methods, which are the distribution of questionnaires survey and semi-structured interview. 100 respondents were targeted for the questionnaire and five respondents for the semi-structured interview. Statistical analysis was used to analyse the data collected from the questionnaire survey while content analysis was applied for the data collected from the semi-structured interview. This paper reveals that no annual paid leaves as unfair welfare practices and lack of inspection as the critical factors contributing to the unfair welfare towards foreign workers. The findings from this paper will be able to shed some light on this issue and the relevant parties can fully utilise it to improve the construction industry as a whole. Indirectly it will be able to set the country on a path towards building its economic and social resilience that will enable the whole country to move forward.
