Government unions want salaries to equal contract staff in Putrajaya agencies
(TMI) – Stung by news that contract officials are getting high pay, the main union body representing 1.4 million civil servants now wants Putrajaya to give them better salaries.
The Congress of Unions of Employees in the Public and Civil Services (Cuepacs) said it was unfair that qualified civil servants are paid less than those on short-term contracts.
“Cuepacs views the current arrangement as unfair whereby contract workers in agencies are getting higher wages than their civil service counterparts,” Cuepacs deputy president Azih Muda told The Malaysian Insider in Kuala Lumpur.
He was commenting on Serdang MP Ong Kian Ming’s expose yesterday that the pay package of a head of a government agency could be as high as RM69,000 a month.
Ong revealed that Malaysia’s top civil servant, the Chief Secretary, was only paid RM23,577 – a far cry from what was earned by the heads of agencies such as TalentCorp, Agensi Inovasi Malaysia, and Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu).
Azih questioned the qualifications and talent of these agency employees that warrant higher salaries than civil servants doing the same job in government.
He said Cuepacs had raised the disparity in salaries between those in service and contract work on numerous occasions but Putrajaya had done little to address it.
“Civil servants are just as qualified as those employed in these agencies,” he said noting that many of them could be deployed to work in these agencies.
Azih said Cuepacs supported the government initiative to trim the budget deficit but urged it to start by looking at the exorbitant salaries paid to those working in its agencies.
