the marginalised people

UPDATED: sunday 5/08/07, 2:32 AM

on reading KTemoc’s post on the plantation workers in bukit jalil, it reminds me of this post of mine where i also talked about plantation workers. it is about the same thing what’s happening with the workers in bukit jalil and the workers at sg siput. they are forced to leave their house which they had been calling homes for decades.

after reading KTemoc’s i suddenly remember during the interview of the plantation worker, what someone, a PSM member said.

ok before that, to sidetrack a little. if you had read the other article i wrote, you would have notice i mentioned these groups of marginalised people were those that dr jeyakumar deveraj and his team had been helping. dr jeya and his team are from the parti socialis malaysia (PSM).

since the plantation workers we interviewed were indians and all 3 of us interviewers were chinese, one of the PSM member (who is also an indian) accompanied us to help us with some translation. the workers did speak bahasa malaysia with us but then some things they find hard to speak in bahasa were spoken in tamil, thus we need a translator.

well, what this PSM member said at almost the end of the interview is etched in my mind…. i think will be in my mind for a long long time. he said:

"apa ertinya merdeka 50 tahun bila pekerja-pekerja masih diabaaikan?"

translated:
"what is the meaning of 50 years merdeka when workers are still neglected?"

note:  at the end of this post there is a picture i took of the estate workers we interviewed 2 household people were there). the only 2 chinese are my friends (PHDC members) who were with me as the interviewers.

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ORIGINAL POST:

remember i informed of my trip to ipoh in early july for a ‘leaders training session‘ organised by penang office of human development? (oh, of course you don’t… that’s why i put in the link).  then later on i blog about meeting some groups of marginalised people.

i had also mentioned about writing an article about the session and the report on the marginalised people to the herald. well, the article is published in next week (5 aug) issue of the herald. unfortunately, they did not publish my report on the marginalised people. hence i will put up the report here on my blog. the write up (the published article) on the session was pretty long, so i won’t have it here but at my mentaljog extra. i put up the unedited version (as what i typed), not the version as appears in the herald. read that article first before reading the report here.

as you will have notice the first report on the estate workers is the longest. well, that was because i was in that group – so received first hand experience interviewing them. touching and kind of sad to hear their stories. some of the things they said are unprintable. er… no, not because they use bad words of coruse but what they said of the government, particularly MIC. it was kind of sensitive. i would love to print them but you know lah, these days with the gomen attacking bloggers and UMNO cyber troopers around, better not, if i don’t want to be hauled up by ISA, OSA, whateverSA.

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REPORTS ON THE MARGINALIZED PEOPLE

Group 1 & 2 – The Estate Workers

These workers are from the Kamiri and Changkat Salak Estate Settlement owned by Guthrie, in Sg. Siput, Perak. They were retrenched on 31 Dec. 1999, after their boss Guthrie wanted to convert the rubber plantation to oil palm plantation. The retrenchment benefit offered to them was from the Employment Acts 1995, which comes to a minimum of only about RM350 per year of service.

There are 52 families in the Kamiri estates and 110 families in Cangkat Salak. 22 families from Kamiri and 7 families from Cangkat Salak refused to take the compensation offered by the company. They wanted to fight for a fair compensation.

These workers refused to accept this minimum compensation of RM350 per year of service, and also refused to vacate their quarters since Guthrie had promised them alternative housing. Guthrie had also failed to implement the Tun Razak Estate House Ownership scheme for them.

They felt that having contributed so many years to the company, they deserved a better compensation. Their compensation is a piece of land and RM1000 per year of service.

All through the years, they had been fighting for their rights in many ways.

They sent a memo to Guthrie and the state assemblyman. They had sent more than 100 letters to the Menteri Besar, asking for appointment but there was either no reply or the replies came in saying ‘we are looking into the matter’. They chartered a bus and journeyed to Guthrie headquarters in KL and demonstrate in front of their building. They even went to Putrajaya to hand in a memo to the Prime Minister.

While all this was going on, the Guthrie management exert pressure on them, like ordering rubbish not to be collected and the grasses not to be cut, cutting off electricity and so on.

3 years ago when they celebrated the Ponggol festival, some  MIC members came to cause some trouble.   

Despite all these pressure going on from the various quarters, they still persevere with their fight for better compensation.

They had lost their appeal in the high court and now they are waiting to go to the Court of Appeal. The Stay of Application will be heard on 28 August.

Group 3 – Orang Asli

The Orang Asli interviewed were from the Temiar group. Their livelihood consists mostly  of farming and agriculture. They were given subsidy RM300 a year by the government for those who are planting palm oil. Factories does not like to employ them as they prefer to employ foreigners. Although the government build school and clinic for them, the children did not get a chance to study till Form 5. The schools are quite a distance away which requires transport expenses which they can’t afford.

Land problem prevail. As the land they are on, is not gazetted, anytime the government can take back the land. Usually after they have developed the land, suddenly the government wanted it back and they took it back without giving them any compensation..

They were always branded lazy by people who do not know them. All activities out of their settlement are to be notified to the JHEOA. Visitors to their settlement are always scrutinized. 

The Penghulu was chosen by the Jabatan Hal Ewal Orang Asli (JHEOA), and not by the orang asli people themselves. Provisions from the government for the Orang Asli were handed to JHEOA, who in turn, passed it to the penghulu, and more often than not it just stop there – at the penghulu – and did not reach the Orang Asli at all.

Group 4 – Foreign Workers

The interviewed worker was brought in by an agent and promised RM700 per month. He worked in Brinchang, Cameron Highlands but for 2 years and 4 months he was not paid anything at all. Found out that his pay was sent to the agent. Later he was paid RM50 per month. He has no accommodation, so he build himself a small shed beside his working place and stayed there. He only ate bread with sugar. Once, he was beaten by his employer, so he made a police report. He also file compensation from his employer and he now get RM200 a month.

Group 5 – Single Mothers

Two single mothers were interviewed. The first one. her husband died 7 years ago. She  has 3 children and work with salary of RM350 per month.. She is using her SOCSO money to pay off the house. Every month, she need to pay RM50 for bas sekolah.. As she works in shift, sometimes she has to neglect the children e.g. no food for the children. She had applied to the social welfare 3 times but without success.

The other single mother has one child. She had approached MIC for help and a MIC representative had taken down her details but until now, there had been no action. She had also applied to the Social Welfare but no action yet.

The PHDC members informed them that as in beginning this year the government had started a single mother’s fund, they can try to apply for the fund..

Group 6 – Vegetable Farmer

 Mr Lye, the vegetable farmer interviewed said that his main problem is land problem. The land is reserved government land, thus whenever the government wants the land back, he had to give it up. It had been 4 times that he moved from land to land. Another problem is that the fertilizers used has only English and Bahasa words, and he being a Chinese can’t read, thus can’t understand the instructions. Another major problem concern middlemen and the pricing of vegetables. The middlemen rakes in most of the profit e.g. for 1 kg of vegetables, he only get RM10 from the middleman. Mr Lye said that the government should fix prices for vegetables so that he won’t be at the mercy of the middlemen.