The plight of Nepalese workers who were cheated out of months of salary while working for McDonald’s in Malaysia has been revealed in an investigative report by The Guardian.
The 15 migrant workers were not directly employed by the fast food giant but were instead placed at its outlets in Kuala Lumpur under a contract McDonald’s Malaysia had with a human resource agency.
Aside from the exploitation by the agency, the UK daily also revealed how the workers did not get any help from McDonalds’ Malaysia management when their grouses were escalated.
Among the grouses by the migrant workers, were that their salaries were not paid on time despite McDonald’s Malaysia having paid the agency in advance.
They also charged that their salary was deducted with a levy of 25% per month, despite promises that the levy was not to be borne by the workers, before they left Nepal.
The delay in the payment of salaries for months left the Nepalese workers not even having enough to buy food for themselves, let alone, remit money back home to their families.
“We didn’t have the money to eat because we were not paid regularly. How can we go to work on an empty stomach?
“I thought it was a good company and I would earn good money. Now my life is damaged. I feel that I have no future,” one of the men told The Guardian, adding that they even went on strike early this year as a result of the late salary payment.
The Nepalese workers had also complained to McDonald’s Malaysia about the agency holding their passports, despite it being against the law, the report said.
When contacted by the daily, McDonald’s Malaysia said in an email that it had ended its contract with the agency.
“At McDonald’s Malaysia, the welfare of staff is a top priority.
“Earlier this year, we became aware of certain circumstances relating to services provided by the agency which were not in compliance with our standards. As a result, we have terminated our contract with them,” the company was quoted as saying in this reply.
However, the workers claimed managers at McDonald’s outlets did not want to take any responsibility as the men were not employed by the fast food giant.
“When we went to meet the managers of McDonald’s to complain, they usually said we were not employed by McDonald’s and they are not responsible for anything. One of my friends even went to the McDonald’s manager crying after he heard news of his child’s death (at home in Nepal).
“He asked him to ask for his passport (from the agency, so that he could attend the funeral), but the McDonald’s manager said that he cannot do anything. I would rather die than go back to work at McDonald’s. I will never work there (again),” one of the men told The Guardian.
Migrant worker exploitation
Another man said he had complained about their salary predicament many times, and that a outlet manager then escalated the problem by sending a message to McDonald’s headquarters.
“But McDonald’s said they had already paid the agency, and didn’t take any further action.”
The Guardian’s probe into the plight of the workers at McDonald’s follows similar tales of migrant worker exploitation at other multinationals in Malaysia, including Panasonic and Samsung, with these companies using human resource agencies to provide the necessary labour.
In a statement, McDonald’s said: “While local employees make up the vast majority – more than 90% – of our workforce, we sometimes work with established recruitment agencies which employ foreign workers, and sub-contract a number of them to McDonald’s in Malaysia. These staff members are employees of the recruitment agency, not McDonald’s.
“McDonald’s Malaysia made repeated attempts with the agency to investigate and verify issues of non-compliance shared by the workers, raising our serious concerns through both verbal and written correspondence. Because the workers are not employees of McDonald’s, our efforts to address the issues were unsuccessful, as were proposals for McDonald’s to assume responsibility for paying workers directly.
“In the interim, to assist, we authorised restaurants to provide food and provisions to workers affected while we worked to address the issue.”
Efforts by the paper to get a response from the agency were unsuccessful as the company did not wish to comment on the worker’s allegations.
An international human rights activist told The Guardian that there was no excuse for any company, especially global giants like McDonald’s, to hide behind codes of conduct while at the same time profiting from exploited labour.
“The great tragedy about this kind of exploitation is that it is actually easy to fix.
“Companies operating and profiting from their business in places like Malaysia can’t say that they are not aware of the issues facing migrant workers there. They need to take a proactive investigative approach to ensuring that, if they use labour supply companies, those companies are adhering to the law and corporate codes of conduct. It’s time for this to stop,” Anti-Slavery International director Aidan McQuade said.
Original article from http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2016/11/29/agency-exploited-us-salaries-unpaid-say-ex-mcdonalds-staff/
