Filipino Workers Letter to Malaysian Prime Minister

March 13, 2012

Mohammad Najib Abdul Razak

Prime Minister of Malaysia

C/o His Excellency Datu Seri’ Ibrahim Saad

Ambassador, Malaysian Embassy

Sen. Gil Puyat Ave., Makati City

Warm greetings!

The Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (Solidarity of Filipino Workers), one of the biggest labor centers in the Philippines together with its allied organizations is deeply alarmed of the various cases involving some bank employees and extremely concerned of the state of human rights and trade union rights in Malaysia. These are clear violation against the free exercise of every worker in Malaysia.

We condemn the deviously premeditate dismissal of NUBE Vice President, Abdul Jamil Jalaludeen and National Treasurer, Chen Ka Fatt for carrying out trade union activity pursuant to the trade dispute with Maybank Bhd, a Malaysian Government Bank which brings the total number of Malaysian trade union leaders dismissed for trade union activity to an alarming figure of 17 thus far.

Unfortunately, the act of the Malaysian Ministry of Human Resources registering the Maybank Berhad sponsored in-house union to represent the very same category of employees represented by NUBE since 1960 is truly unimaginable.

More so, we are sending our strongest condemnation of the actions of the supposed protectors of human rights and trade union rights in Malaysia, the Ministry of Human Resources and Human Rights Commission condoning the violation of human and trade union rights by Maybank Bhd.

We cannot close our eyes seeing our brethren in Malaysia suffering from various injustices to which your country is truly responsible.

In so doing, we urge your Government to immediately resolve the following issues of concern:

1. Reinstate all 17 trade union leaders dismissed for trade union activities given his deteriorating health condition which was committed contrary to the protection accorded to trade unions and its members;

2. Cancel the registration of the management sponsored in-house union immediately;

3. Investigate on the allegations of intimidation, assault and battery of NUBE officials including a lady officer by the Security personnel of Maybank Berhad;

4. Investigate the involvement of Police intimidation and harassment of NUBE official against exercising their right to picket;

5. Investigate the seizure of the NUBE General Secretary’s CPU for no apparent reason;

6. Respect the fundamental rights and freedoms of trade unions and union activists in accordance with international labour norms and the Malaysian laws;

7. Pay back all the salaries of NUBE officials deducted by Maybank for trade union activities;

8. Stop impeding the functioning of NUBE as a trade union;

9. Engage in a respectful and peaceful dialogue to set up and institutionalise mechanisms to respect fundamental human rights in Malaysia and to end the violations which include intimidation, harassment, victimisation and unjust sentencing and dismissals;

As of the moment, our organization is pursuing a sustained campaign to support the struggle of the Maybank employees. We will do our share in projecting the issue in the global arena.

For a start, we are soliciting some support from various sectors in the Philippines through petition and protest letters pressuring your Government to heed the call of the Maybank workers. So far, we have been successful in uniting some of our allies and networks in our efforts to seek help and gain more strength in the fight for the interests and welfare of our fellow brethren in Malaysia.

We will monitor your actions and look forward to hearing about your positive intervention on this very serious matter.

Very truly yours,

Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP)

Metro East Labor Federation (MELF)

SUPER Federation

Kongreso ng Pagkakaisa ng Maralitang Lungsod (KPML)

Pagkakaisa ng Manggagawa sa Transportasyon (PMT)

Partido Lakas ng Masa (PLM)