Industrial Relations and Unions Busting in Malaysia.

Industrial relations and unions busting in MalaysiaByBalakrishnan Parasuraman,Senior Lecturer in Industrial Relations, University Malaysia Sabah, Email: drrusia@gmail.com or bala@ums.edu.my Balakrishnan Muniapan, Lecturer in Human Resource Management, Curtin University of Technology, Malaysia, Email: bala.m@curtin.edu.my Industrial relations are the relations between employer, employees and trade union. In the Malaysian context; Wu (1995), Ayadurai (1996), Anantaraman (1996), Gomez (1997), D’Cruz (1999), Aminuddin (2003), Parasuraman (2004) are among the authors who have done several studies in the area of industrial relation and trade unionism. However none of the studies have specifically explored the cases and tactics used by Malaysian employers in union busting. Union busting is an unethical practice, undertaken by an employer when workers are attempting to form and join a union, this also includes employers’ activities to break and weaken the existing unions. Union busting is one of the key industrial relations issue not only in Malaysia but also in other countries irrespective of the economic development. The Industrial Relation Act (IRA) 1967, Section 4, 5 and 7 protects every right of the workmen to join or not to join a trade union, and also protects workmen from being victimized by employer for forming or joining a trade union. However Section 13 (3) of the IRA 1967 states explicitly that an employer may dismiss, terminate, employ, and assign work, transfer or refuse to promote a worker on other grounds. In this paper the authors examines the IRA 1967 and the Trade Unions Act (TUA) 1959; the two important piece of employment legislation in Malaysia to explain the trade unionism which involve the right organize and bargain collectively. Besides some of the union busting cases, which have taken place over the last five years are also discussed in this paper. The discussions are based on several sources of information collected from secondary sources and informal discussions with trade union leaders, members and workers from both West and East Malaysia. Findings from the discussion revealed several cases and tactics used by the employer in union busting activities. In this paper the authors also provide effective strategies to create and maintain for harmonious industrial relations in the context of Malaysia. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]