By Zareef Muzammil
SHAH ALAM, Aug 5 — The Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) has welcomed the state government’s proposal to offer special incentives to companies that establish childcare centres in their office premises.
Its president Mohd Effendy Abdul Ghani said the measures under the First Selangor Plan (RS-1) is worthy of emulation by employers and companies outside of Selangor, so as to ensure employees will not quit their jobs due to caring for young children.
He said setting up childcare centres in office premises will help to reduce the pressure on working women in the office, which in turn positively impacts productivity and work quality.
“The Selangor government’s move is timely as there are many working women with small children at the present. With a childcare centre in the office, they will be able to focus on their respective tasks.
“So this proposal is highly welcomed, and ought to be followed by other companies or state governments,” Mohd Effendy told SelangorKini today.
He said that to his understanding, a memo was issued in 2017 which requested both private and public companies in Malaysia work towards providing childcare centres so as to serve as a support system for working parents, particularly breastfeeding mothers.
“However, no incentives were offered to the companies involved that set up childcare centres on their premises, with the response from public companies higher than their private counterparts at that time,” he said.
RS-1 was tabled by Menteri Besar Dato’ Seri Amirudin Shari on July 27, which proposed the establishment of childcare centres in office buildings for the benefit of working women.
He said such facilities will encourage more women to remain employed, thus contributing to the 75 per cent participation target of working women in the job market by 2025.
The initiative began with state government agencies and subsidiaries, in addition to making it compulsory for childcare centres and special rooms to breastfeed babies on all local authorities’ premises.
