As of early May 2010, The Malaysian Department of Trade Union Affairs has registered three regional electronics employees unions in the peninsula: the Western Region (covering Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and Perak); the Southern Region (Johor, Malacca and Negri Sembilan); and most recently the Northern Region (Penang, Kedah and Perlis). An eastern regional union is due to be registered soon.
These formal registrations are the result of the Malaysian cabinet approving, in May 2009, for the first time, the formation of non-in house trade unions for the electronic sector.

This took long negotiations between the government and a trade union sponsor committee. The sponsor committee consisted of the Electronic Industry Workers' Union Sponsor (KSIE), Bruno Periera of the Electronic Industry Employees Union Western Region, and Malaysian Trade Union Congress (MTUC) president Syed Shahir Syed Mohamud. The sponsor committee had insisted on a national-level trade union for the industry which the ministry refused. In a compromise, the sponsor committee members agreed to the formation of regional unions as a solution, at Peninsular Malaysia. “This is the first time in the history of Malaysian workers that a union has been broken up into regions. It was the decision of the Cabinet on May 27 last year that only unions at regional level would be allowed, unlike the national unions for the other industries,” Bruno Periera said in a statement.

The struggle for a trade union in the electronic industry in Malaysia began as early as 1973, but at the time the authorities forbade the existing Electrical Industry Workers’ Union to accept electronics workers as members, saying they were in two different sectors. This exceptional government stance make Malaysia one of the rare countries that differentiates between these sectors.

Another attempt in the 1980s to set up a national union for the electronics sector also failed because government policy then was for in-house unions only in the electronics sector.

"Internationally, at almost at every ILO conference, the Malaysian labour minister was criticised and queried about this issue, and locally at every workers meeting, this issue was hotly debated," points out veteran trade unionist and past MTUC president Datuk Zainal Rampak.

According to the MTUC, in 2007, there were some 365 electronic companies in Malaysia which hired close to 290,000 workers. However, only 12 in-house unions were registered, with some 12,000 to 15,000 members unions which translated to a mere 5 per cent of the total workforce in the industry.

The in-house or internal unions were not spared of problems, as there were instances where companies deliberately change its registration number to cause the internal unions to be deregistered. In 2006, the Court of Appeal ruled that when a company changes its registration, the existing union can not represent its workers. “That is precisely why we opposed the formation of in-house unions and insisted on industrial unions. Thus, even if the company changed its registration, the industrial union can still represent the workers”, says Periera now. .

In 2007 alone, the industry registered RM157 billion in terms of value of gross output. “It could be said that there has been no real salary increase from the 1970s to now, with a base salary of between RM350 and RM700 for operators, with most of them earning RM450 a month”, according to Periera.  Pereira states that "a generation of electronic workers have been denied benefits in spite of the huge profits these companies have been making year after year for the 40 years or so."

"Although we are (now still) only allowed to form industrial union on a regional basis, nevertheless it is far better than in-house unions", underlines Pereira.

Sources/press clippings:

Bernama: Union Formation Enhances Government Image

The Star - Four regional unions for electronics workers soon

Malaysiakini: Unions see light in electronic sector after 40 years