foreign labor – Page 2 – the _

[1102] Of a xenophobic bill

Thanks to Chinese New Year, a typical weekend became a four-day holiday for many in Malaysia. According to several sources including TV3, foreign laborers flooded Kuala Lumpur for recreational purposes on Sunday. In the news reports, locals expressed discomfort of seeing foreign laborers walking around so freely in large number. I thought it was normal for the locals to feel some discomfort and since I have blogged about such xenophobia earlier, I decided to let it go. When I saw a post by The Malaysian which quotes the International Herald Tribune however, I changed my mind. In the IHT:

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: Foreign laborers in Malaysia’s largest city denounced Monday proposed legislation that would restrict them to their work sites unless they receive special permission to leave.

Home Minister Radzi Sheikh Ahmad said he intends to propose a bill next month that could see nearly 2 million foreign workers in the Southeast Asian nation confined to their living quarters, the Star newspaper Web site reported Sunday.

The bill is xenophobic and must not pass. We are talking about humans here, not dogs.

If the bill goes through, then Malaysia must be prepared for rocky relationships with several countries which will inevitably include our neighbor, Indonesia.

Further in the report:

Police Chief Musa Hassan said foreign laborers may be restricted to their living quarters and their “activities monitored” as part of efforts to curb crime. Musa said 5,000 crimes were committed by foreigners last year from a total of about 230,000.

And:

“It is a way to prevent those employees from committing crimes,” he said adding 2% of the crimes committed in the country are by foreign workers.

Based on the statistics, if we are really concerned about crime rate, we should restrict the locals instead. But no, there are those that are encouraging the Mat Rempits to disregard the law in the name of fighting crime:

BALING: Putera Umno will reward Mat Rempit here with motorcycles for helping police detain snatch thieves.

Its chief Datuk Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim said the incentive was one way of curbing snatch thefts in the Baling district and to encourage the illegal racers to be police informants.

However, he added, before the Mat Rempit could take home the motorcycle, they would have to catch at least 30 snatch thieves and be rewarded RM50 per head.

A great policy from a person whom “graduated” from the “prestigious” “Preston University“. For more on Abdul Azeez Abdul Rahim, please read an article by Joceline Tan.

In the end, are we as a society being honest here?

[1081] Of foreign labor and crime rate

There are xenophobic Malaysians and that is the truth. Some of these xenophobes take it one step further and allege that the increased population of foreign workers is the cause of increased crime rate.

I am usually uncomfortable with the allegation. In a way, the phobia forms part of anti-free market thinking; protectionist thinking. Further, it seems that foreign workers are being made scapegoats.

Without proper citation however, if I were to challenge the allegation, their words would be as good as mine. That changes today as I have found a reputable source to back me up. At The Economist:

Malaysians think that the increase in foreign workers has worsened crime rates. Official figures show that foreigners in the country commit proportionately fewer crimes than do Malaysians themselves.

Anyway, the xenophobia is not unique to Malaysia though the reason might differ. Nevertheless, it is a typical protectionist rationale:

Locals in the receiving countries already seem to be worried about competition for their jobs. In a recent poll for the ILO, 59% of Thais said their government should admit no more foreign workers, and only 10% thought more should come. Even in prosperous, cosmopolitan Singapore, just over half of locals oppose admitting more foreign workers, according to a poll in the Straits Times.

Also, in Singapore, according to Rajan:

In other words, foreigners are proportionally underrepresented amongst criminals. So not only is “most crimes in Singapore are done by foreign labourer workers” false in the absolute sense, neither is it true on a proportional basis.

So, let us reject out irrational prejudice against foreign labors.