Comment: Malaysia's Ancient Employment Act & the Gig Economy

/commented on the weaknesses of the Employment Act in delivering social welfare (not thoroughly researched; anecdotal, but worth noting for future reference)/

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The narrative of 'the Employment Act is a good law, and therefore everyone should follow the Employment Act' is somewhat naive. You'll find upon examination of the Employee Act is that it draws great distinction between non-employee workers (covered by the act) and everyone else. This is of course, counterproductive.

Unless this is coupled with a ban on non-employee contracts for services... it is rather vacuous, and instead incentivises all parties to use non-employees contracts whenever the option is available.

It's an extremely common conversation for me to have with potential hires:

'If you sign a contract OF services, governed by the Employment Act', you are signing as an Employee and responsible for filing your income taxes under form BE... and I can pay you X in cash + Y statutory benefits, and I will incur Z costs of administration.'

'If you sign a contract FOR services, not governed by the Employment Act', you are signing as an independent business entity and responsible for filing your income taxes under form B... and I can pay you (X+Y+Z) in cash''

Almost everyone opts for the second option. The business manager doesn't care which is taken as long as the total payout is X+Y+Z.

In responses to a growing number of freelances taking the second option, the competitive structure of businesses also becomes more complicated - freelances find that they have fewer rights, and employees find that their opportunities for growth are very limited because their companies are competing against other companies who use freelances instead of employees.

What I find hilarious is that the political rhetorical surrounding labour economics... almost always talks about modifying the Employment Act in ways that encumber the business manager (given the false narrative that it is a zero sum game between businesses and employees), whereas the bigger distinction is between (businesses operating under the Employment Act) and (businesses operating legally outside of the Employment Act).

Comment: Parental Leave Benefits in Malaysia - we need a single-payer system

This was written shortly before the announcement of Malaysia's Budget 2020, where paid maternity leave has been proposed to increase from 60 to 90 days.

I would like to address a few concerns on Malaysia's laws on parent leave and parental allowance.

To briefly reiterate the Employment Act of Malaysia (1955)'s current stance on parental leave and statutory monetary allowances, currently, employed women who give birth to a child must receive up to 60 days of statutory maternity leave with allowance, at the liability of their employer. Fathers receive no parental leave and no allowance.

Concern #1. Statutory parental allowances (moms' and dads' paid leaves) are still charged to the private sector

In short, we need a 'single payer' system for statutory parental benefits, instead of involving thousands of companies' and distorting their trading/accounting concerns.

In many countries, the burden of payment of parental leave falls upon the government. Further studies are required to determine the pros and cons of such a policy. From my own limited perspective, what I do see in Malaysia is that this policy favours large businesses over small businesses.

Under the current law, an employee who has worked as little as three months out of a nine-month period may qualify for paid maternity leave, for another two months after that. This means that an employer (who abides by the law) has to budget for up to five months of pay, for a staff who delivers only three months of work, while the employer also has to juggle this process over an eleven month period. Larger businesses with specialised human resource and finance administrators are at an advantage in dealing with this phenomena. Smaller businesses are at a disadvantage.

So as I see it, the current implementation (law) is flawed, even though it aims to implement a desirable policy (paid maternity leave). The current implementation of the policy unequally burdens small businesses, and thus makes it more difficult for new merchants to lift themselves out of poverty (read: those who are young, inexperienced, and without special access to capital). Furthermore, this exacerbates a feedback loop which reduces the competitiveness of those smaller businesses, and reducing the effectiveness of the free market economy as a whole. This finally jeopardises economic reforms and our national goal to become competitive on a global scale.

I hope that the present and future ministers of Malaysia will consider changing the law, to nationalise the cost of compensating parents of any gender, for their duties in national building, via child-bearing and child-rearing. Instead of adding complexity to the accounting and administrative processes of thousands of private companies, I implore the relevant ministers and their staff to consider the benefits of a simplified single federal program which reimburses parents for their statutory parental allowances. Of course, the cost of this program should be compensated for by higher taxes.

More taxes, one place to collect benefits, and less complexity for everyone.

I hope this appeal gets an ear.

Concern #2. Paternity (dads') leave is still unequal to maternity (moms') leave

I hope that our ministers seek further to design families where the burden of child-rearing responsibilities are divided equally among parents. For reference, take a look at Spain's policy of progressively equalising paternity and maternity leaves.

Concern #3. Maternity (moms') leave is still too short

At 9-10 weeks, Malaysia's maternity leave falls behind a number of other countries which provide 12 -14 weeks of leave. Fast forward to this week's news, on 6 October 2019 Malaysian newspapers reported that the Human Resources Ministry is proposing an increase in the number of maternity leave days from 60 to 98. Bravo. Curiously, reporters haven't added comments from the Ministry of Women, Family, and Community Development, thought surely social policies such as these fall somewhat under their portfolios also.

What follows below is a broader, but related issue:

Throwing back to a broader point which I wrote about in June, parents and non-parents can't be compensated differently by the PRIVATE sector, without distorting the talent management finances of thousands of companies.

Paternity Leave - my brief policy opinion: we should have 90 days optional paid leave per annum, for a maximum of two years every seven years, for all employees, regardless of parenthood, and regardless of gender. This should be funded via a government fund. Having employers pay for it is completely ass backwards.

Comment: Public Policy & Mental Health

(this is not meant to be more than a random comment, it is not well thought out)


The traditional solution was that people would speak frequently with other members of their society, who lived and worked closely with them. As consumerism (read: the phenomena of social engineering which encourages individuals to maximise personal opex) led to smaller social units (notice how people like the Flecks live alone, rather than in shared spaces), the rudimentary support for smaller mental health issues has been reduced. This results from a public policy of increasing the rate of private property ownership per individual (read: not just real estate) and conversely decreasing the rate of public commons.

In theory, if the government is going to design policies that encourage smaller social units, and if it isn't going to provide supplementary social workers to replace the infrastructure that went missing with the reduction in size of social units, then individuals will suffer, and as we can see they may be required to seek help out of their own pockets. This is a public policy of privatising mental health services.

We see from the co-living/co-working trend a reflexive move by individuals to return to shared spaces. The need to share space is valuable - although it is not clear that those who seek to collect rent on shared space will be able to do this profitably. Nor is it clear that they should aim to do so.

What can individuals do about this? Be extra attentive to the people who appear to be lacking in friendships, in your various work and living spaces.

What more can individuals do? Lobby your parliamentary representatives, to form coherent policies that reverse the pattern of privatising the commons, at the expense of individuals' well-beings.

Why might anyone oppose this? Well, if you don't believe that mental health is a basic human right, and that it should be bought only by the wealthy, then no need lah to save the common spaces of society! :)

Shit, I seem to have stumbled upon an argument for the immorality of rented co-x spaces. LOL