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Malaysia: Stop union busting in SFI

In partnership with Building and Wood Workers' International, the Global Union Federation grouping free and democratic unions with members in the Building, Building Materials, Wood, Forestry and Allied sectors. The BWI groups together around 326 trade unions representing around 12 million members in 130 countries.

The Sabah Forest Industries (SFI), owned and operated by Ballarpur Industries Limited (BILT), part of the Avantha group, has been refusing to recognise the Sabah Timber Industry Employees Union (STIEU). SFI has defied the order of the Malaysian Ministry of Human Resources on employees eligible to vote in secret ballot and filed its third judicial review before Sabah High Court on 14 May 2015. SFI has also been reviving the defunct union saying that it will only recognise an in-house union. SFI continues to apply double standards regarding workers' rights, allowing unions to be formed and sign collective agreements in India but not in Malaysia. In view of the above, the union calls on SFI to allow its workers to have the right to form a trade union of their own choosing as enshrined in ILO convention 87 and embedded as a mandatory requirement in forest certification systems and performance standards of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) which financially supports SFI.



Your message will be sent to the following email addresses:
s.dang@avanthagroup.com, Sukarti.Wakiman@sabah.gov.my, yagarwal@bilt.com