Based on in section 21 of the Trade Union Act, 1959 there is a provision that mentioned
no suit or other lawful proceeding shall be viable in any civil court inconsistency of any
enumerated trade union or any officer or member thereof in respect of any act done in survey
or in furtherance of a trade disagreement to which a member of the trade union is a party on
the ground only that such act induces some other person to disruption a contract of
employment, or that it is an interference with the trade, business or employment of some other
person or with the right of some other individual to dispose of his capital or of his workforce
as he drives.
Next, under normal circumstances which an employer are eligible to take an action against
his employees. This situation will happened when those who are not a member or officer of the
union but they are found to join strike, its means they breached their contract of service as an
employee. For example, whereby there are people those are not possess or join any trade union
but they are found joining the strike. The other circumstances is the strike is lawful and done
in furtherance of trade dispute, then no action shall be taken against the employee. Its mean the
strike that run by trade union to deal with the trade dispute is lawful and immune from any civil
action if the people those who are joining the strike is the member of union.
According to Trade Union Act 1959 section 22, trade union is immune from any tortous
act allegation and trade union trustees and officials protected. Through this act, such allegations
will not be heard or entertained by any court unless there is a case of breach of contract such
as compensation payment to retrenchment practices. Other than, no consideration will be
acknowledged for any undertakings of the union regarding its explicit property or rights except
in respect of furtherance of a trade disputes. A retrenchment occur when there is a dismissal
when an employer has more workers than it. For instance, there has been a wave of
retrenchments in Malaysia, which ongoing last year and looks to remain through 2016.
Malaysia’s Human Resources Minister says that his ministry presumes retrenchments to
continue into 2017. Conferring to the Malaysian Employers’ Federation (MEF), more than
20,000 employees were retrenched in 2015 (as at September 2015). Relatively, the figure for
the entire 2014 was 10,000 employees. The MEF forecasts that it will only get inferior in 2016.
Although the steepest increase in retrenchment numbers are in the oil and gas industry, the
banking industry has also seen numerous retrenchment movements or voluntary separation
schemes being applied. The legal industry has also been affected, with many medium and big
law firms either downsizing or freezing hiring.
https://www.workitdaily.com/employer-breach-contract/
https://themalaysianlawyer.com/2016/01/22/law-retrenchment-of-employees/
http://www.commonlii.org/my/legis/consol_act/tua19591981225/
http://www.thesundaily.my/news/2017/08/21/trade-unions-not-liable-defamation