Trade unions in Malaysia

Trade unions in Malaysia are regulated by the Industrial Relations Act (IRA) 1967.

Membership

The IRA protects the right of every worker in Malaysia to join or not to join a trade union.

It protects workers from being victimised by an employer for joining a union. However, the same section of an act states explicitly that an employer may dismiss, demote, transfer or refuse to promote a worker on other grounds.

Unions may undertake collective bargaining on behalf of members if they have obtained recognition from the employer.

A general practice is for unions to request recognition after obtaining more than 50% of the staff as their members. After that, the employer has 21 days in which to recognise the union. If the employer does not provide recognition within the stipulated period the matter will be taken to the Director General of Industrial Relations (DGIR) for arbitration.

The IRA allows employers to prohibit management, executives and those who work in a confidential or security capacity from joining a union. The definitions of these terms are left to the employers' discretion. In practice, some employers classify all clerical staff as working in a confidential capacity and production workers as working in a security capacity since they overs