Up to 75% of industrial court cases have been solved by the Human Resource Ministry this year through the newly implemented arbitration system.

According to the HR Minister, Datuk Dr. S Subramaniam, statistics show that only 512 cases were referred to the Industrial Court this year, compared to last year’s figure which reached 3,200 cases.

The new arbitration process and system has also helped to reduce time and cost, and ensured speedier delivery of justice settlement. In the recent years, backlog cases have been haunting many different courts in Malaysia and this resulted in hardship and inconvenience to the parties disputing their cases.

Arbitration refers to the process of appointing an independent middleman agreed by two parties in dispute to settle the differences and come out with a solution. Through arbitration, a case would not have to be referred to the Industrial Court, and save time for all parties. Formulated by the Industrial Relations Department, the arbitration process was implemented since early of 2008, and was expected to cut the number of backlog cases by half before the year ends.

Despite the unforgiving economic downturn, the Human Resource Minister of Malaysia, Datuk Dr S Subramaniam has come up with an assurance that the government does not intend to retrench its workers who are serving the public.

According to Subramaniam, both permanent and contract staff with the government are safe from lay off and mass termination.

In the recent weeks, the future of the government workers, especially some 50,000 of them who were hired on contractual basis has been put into question by the union of public servants, Cuepacs. The body anticipates that many of them will lose their jobs before the end of the year as the government would exercise some cost cutting strategy and reduce the number of workforce.

While his assurance comes a bit as a relief, Subramaniam may soon find himself having to eat his own words. In early November, Cuepacs alleged that 100 workers who were serving the public sector in Kelantan had their service terminated despite the Prime Minister’s assurance that the government will continue hiring and maintaining workers.

In the newly lined up Malaysia cabinet announced yesterday, Datuk Dr. S Subramniam has been appointed the new Human Resource Minister, replacing Dato Wira Dr Fong Chan Onn. Subramaniam is the MIC Secretary General.

The Human Resource Minister is responsible to making sure that the labor and human resources policies are formulated in a fair manner that will benefit all parties. The minister is backed by 9 divisions, namely: Manpower Department, Department of Skills Development, Labor Department (1-Peninsular Malaysia, 2-Sabah and 3-Sarawak), Occupational Safety and Health (OSH), Trade Union Affairs, Industrial Relations Department and Industrial Court.

But most workers and employees in Malaysia would care less about the roles of the Ministry and show little interest except about jobs, and in particular with the Job Clearing System (JCS) introduced by the Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX) which is under the directive of the Human Resource Minister. The JCS is a system implemented to provide an automatic job matching service to job seekers.

Click here to go to JCS.

Subramaniam will be assisted by Datuk Noraini Ahmad, the Puteri UMNO Chief as the Deputy Minister.