The lock-out of Central Printing Co. At Petaling Jaya

The DAP Organising Secretary, Mr. Lim Kit Siang, today issued the following statement (23.3.1969):

The seven-week lock-out of the Central Printing Co. in Petaling Jaya is a good example of the utter helplessness of workers in the face of the unholy alliance between rapacious capital and anti-labour government against the working class.

When management and the government team up to deny the workers their fundamental rights to unionise, and to a more decent standard of living, the workers are crushed and left to their misery and suffering.

70-odd The Central Printing Co.’s Lock-out was a mass punishment of the workers of the printing firm for unionization last October and for asking for improved wages and working conditions.

The Industrial Relations Act was supposed to contain safeguards against victimization, intimidation and dismissal of workers by employers for active union work. But here is a case of victimization not of one worker, but of all workers – because they decided to form a union. Continue reading The lock-out of Central Printing Co. At Petaling Jaya

Unemployment in Malaysia: DAP calls for a new government department specially to look after mass retrenchment cases

Speech by DAP Organising Secretary, Mr. Lim Kit Siang, at the general meeting of the DAP Labour Bureau general meeting in Kuala Lumpur, 63-D Jalan Sultan, February 9, 1969 at 9 a.m.

Last month, when the Ipoh Municipal Council wanted to fill 21 vacancies for labourers, over 2,000 people jammed the Municipal Padang for the posts.

Later in the month, when a new hotel in Kuala Lumpur advertised for 110 vacancies for waiters, receptionists, cashiers, bellboys and supervisors, over 4,500 people, including 3,000 School Certificate holders, applied for the positions.

These are not exceptional cases. They have become normal occurrences. They illustrate the gravity and seriousness of the rising unemployment problem in Malaysia.

What is shocking is that the Alliance leaders do not seem concerned about this serious unemployment problem. Continue reading Unemployment in Malaysia: DAP calls for a new government department specially to look after mass retrenchment cases

The DAP – a workers’ Party

Speech by DAP Serdang by-election candidate, Mr. Lim Kit Siang, who is also DAP Organising Secretary, at DAP by-election rally at Sungei Besi Tin Mines on December 24, 1968 at 8 p.m.

The DAP is the only democratic socialist party in Malaysia, which seeks to abolish all forms of inequality and exploitation of man by man, race by race or class by class.

The Alliance is a feudal compradore government, which is hand-in-glove with moneyed capital to squeeze every cent out of the exploited workers. The Gerakan, through its spokesman Dr. Syed Naguib Alatas at the cultural debate with the DAP, scorned at socialism.

The Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Inche Senu Abdul Rahman, said socialism is a foreign ideology. The Gerakan, through its spokesman Dr. Syed Naguib Alatas, also scorned at socialism, as a Western product.

In Malaysia, after Merdeka, the plight of the workers have not improved. There are tens of thousands of workers who have to work under inhuman working conditions, like 12 hours a day, seven days a week, at ridiculously low pay, without medical benefits and other benefits, completely at the mercy of employers. Continue reading The DAP – a workers’ Party

New Deal for Workers of Malaysia

Speech by DAP Candidates for Serdang State by-election, Mr. Lim Kit Siang, who is also DAP Organising Secretary, at the fifth DAP Serdang by-election public rally held at Serdang Lama on Wednesday, 11th December 1968 at 8 p.m.

The workers have been one of the most neglected sections of the population in the last 13 years of Alliance rule.

This is because the Alliance government is a feudal-compradore government which has no sympathy or understanding of the suffering and hardships of the working class.

Over the years, the plight of the workers have worsened, as a result of the deteriorating economic situation, the spiralling unemployment and a steeply rising cost of living. Continue reading New Deal for Workers of Malaysia

Fragmentation of estates

Press Statement: 5 Dec 1968

The DAP Candidates for Serdang State By-election and DAP organising Secretary, Mr. Lim Kit Siang, today issued the following statement:

At long last, the Alliance government seemed to have woken up to the seriousness of the problem of fragmentation of estates, which over the years have thrown tens of thousands of workers out of employment.

Fragmentation of estates is a major social problem, and the Democratic Action Party, both inside parliament, through its M. P. for Bangsar, Mr.C. V. Devan Nair, and outside, have consistently pressed for legislation to control fragmentation to ensure that the interests and welfare of the workers are protected. Continue reading Fragmentation of estates

Growing unemployment and mass retrenchments in the rubber industry

Talk by DAP Organizing Secretary, Mr. Lim Kit Siang, at the Batu Pahat DAP Branch first anniversary dinner in Batu Pahat, Johore on Sunday, July 21 at 8 p.m.

Over the months, thousands of estate workers have lost their jobs. At present another 5,000 are facing imminent retrenchment.

The retrenchment of workers in the rubber industry has reached crisis proportion. It is deplorable that the government has failed to take concrete, vigorous and imaginative action to deal with this problem, either by reducing the scale of retrenchments of finding alternative means of livelihood for the retrenched workers. Continue reading Growing unemployment and mass retrenchments in the rubber industry

Great trials and tribulations for Malaysian workers

Speech by DAP Organising Secretary, Mr Lim Kit Siang, when inaugurating the DAP Johore Labour Bureau in Johore Bahru on Saturday, 8th June 1968 at 5 pm.

The workers of Malaysia are entering a period of great trials and tribulations. They are facing their greatest challenge and onslaught from the management in the last two decades.

There are already many ominous signs. For the past month, there had been growing and spreading labour unrest in the estates.

Between six to eight thousand rubber tappers and workers had been retrenched. Major strikes are increasing all over the country. In Johore, 1,700 tappers and workers in the Johore Labis Estate in Cha’ah had been on strike for a month. All the indications are that industrial unrest are going to increase and even spread to other sectors of the economy, rather than decrease and subside. Continue reading Great trials and tribulations for Malaysian workers

Crisis in the Rubber Industry

Talk by DAP Organising Secretary, Mr.Lim Kit Siang, to the Slim River DAP Branch on Saturday,18th May 1968 at 5 p.m.

For over a year, there has been a crisis in the rubber industry.

When rubber price dropped to a 19-year-old low of 47 cents on September 13 last year, the government went into a frenzy of activities and won a lot of publicity by announcing its intervention in the rubber market until “a fair price” was obtained.

One assumed that the fair price the government had in mind then was fifty-five cents.

However, despite the reported sum of $10 million which had been allocated to the Government Rubber Trading Trust Account to stockpile rubber, the price of rubber had averaged below 50 cents since. Continue reading Crisis in the Rubber Industry