Speaking at the International Social Security Association (ISSA) Technical Seminar in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday (Aug 27), Human Resources Minister Steven Sim said all 180,000 Grab Malaysia drivers now have free social security coverage.
He said the ehailing and phailing platform operator Grab Malaysia had come forward to pay the balance 10% of the cost for their 180,000 drivers nationwide. The government had initially sponsored 90% of their Social Security Organisation (Socso) contributions.
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He said the ehailing and phailing platform operator Grab Malaysia had come forward to pay the balance 10% of the cost for their 180,000 drivers nationwide. The government had initially sponsored 90% of their Social Security Organisation (Socso) contributions.
Read more at https://shorturl.at/qY7F5
WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news
SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar
LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline
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NewsTranscript
00:00The more I ruminate over the gig economy, the more I come to this conclusion that we
00:11are using 21st century technological concepts to generate profit while at the same time
00:17using 10th century labour standards to put people to work.
00:23Now don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of technology and entrepreneurship.
00:29I appreciate how the combination of both can be a very powerful factor to grow the economy
00:35and lift people out of poverty.
00:38What I hope is this, that we are able to update our labour standards, our labour laws to catch
00:43up with the changes in the economy and job market in this 21st century.
00:48And I'm glad that when I attended the ILO conference this year, I was informed that
00:54gig economy will be discussed in next year's conference.
00:58The world is finally catching up to update our labour code in view of technological updates.
01:06Since 2017, Perkeso has already a Self-Employment Social Security Act and this covers work-related
01:15social insurance for gig workers as well.
01:18The government even subsidised 90% of the cost of this social security insurance for
01:22self-employed workers.
01:24In fact, I'm proud to announce that the biggest e-hailing and p-hailing platform operator
01:29here in Malaysia, Grab, has come forward to pay the balance 10% of the cost for the 180,000
01:38drivers nationwide.
01:41This means all Grab drivers get free social security coverage by Perkeso this year.
01:48Congratulations Grab.
01:51Yet, the current government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and under
01:56the stewardship of Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Amidi, we realise we are
02:02aware of the inadequacy of the current labour laws to provide sufficient protection for
02:07gig workers.
02:09Hence, in March this year, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim tasked the Ministry of Human
02:14Resources to create a new gig workers law to have a better protection for Malaysian
02:22gig workers.
02:24The Ministry has just completed a bill drafting workshop this month and an early framework
02:29of the proposed Act has been produced.
02:31The new law will have four main pillars.
02:35Number one, definition of a gig worker or a platform worker.
02:40Number two, minimum compensation in the form of earning for p-hailing and e-hailing workers.
02:48Number three, a grievance mechanism and of course, finally, which is relevant to our
02:56topic of discussion, social security protection, especially in terms of social insurance and
03:02pensions.
03:03In the coming months, the Ministry will conduct further stakeholders' consultation with other
03:08ministries and agencies, representatives from workers' unions, gig workers' associations,
03:15representatives from the employers and platform operators and other interest groups on the
03:19new bill.
03:21The Government aims to table this historic bill in Parliament by the end of this year.
03:28There are still gaps, for sure, but this represents Malaysia's first holistic effort to ensure
03:37decent work and protection for gig workers, which made up about 1.1 million out of the
03:443 million self-employed workers in this country.