All over the world, come the first of the month of May, the occasion celebrated is International Labour Day, or better known as Worker’s Day, where workers are remembered and honoured with gratitude and appreciation by everyone.

It is a day set aside to commemorate and pay tribute to the worker for his contribution to building nations and being the backbone of a nation’s economy and therefore he or she plays a very important role in society.

Recent reports of human trafficking involving Malaysia and the utilisation of forced labour and the neglect and exploitation of workers have cause a furore in the international media with particular emphasis on workers employed in the local plantation sector.

Other complaints have surfaced of the abuse of workers by being made to work in sweatshops for long hours and meagre sums of money in compensation while employers rake in huge profits at their expense.

This does not augur well for the country and the plight of migrant workers and those with refugee status has to be looked into by the government and relevant authorities if Malaysia is to remain a healthy democracy and not descend into a Third World seige.

For the benefit of everyone, profits have to be equitably distributed and without the work performance of the worker on the shop floor these profits will never be derived in the first place signifying the very important role of the worker.

-THE MALAYSIA VOICE