Private sector's urgent need for life-long pension plan, affordable health insurance scheme

NST KUALA LUMPUR: A life-long pension plan and affordable health insurance scheme must be in place for private sector workers whose savings are depleted soon after retirement.

President of newly formed Malaysian Society for Labour and Social Security Law, Datuk Dr Cyrus Das said it was generally believed that a private sector retiree who is non-pensionable exhausted his savings from Employees Provident Fund within three and five years of retirement.

"There must be therefore be due consideration of a life-long pension scheme for private sector workers and affordable health insurance schemes," he said in his speech at the inaugural conference on employment and labour law at a hotel here today.

He said social justice was not limited to looking at well being of employees during employment but also after retirement.

The event attended by about 200 participants is co-organised with the Malaysian Current Law Journal (CLJ), one of the leaders in law publishing.

Das said in a society where "people lived longer and money grew shorter", the dependence on social security schemes became critical.

He pointed out that the United States Supreme Court handed down a significant decision last week that validated the Obama healthcare reform, providing for mandatory health insurance from 2014 for nearly all its citizens.

He said his organisation would endeavour to provide constructive proposals to look into the welfare of private sector workers.

" Our society is well placed to do this (to provide feedback) as we are comprised of all the principal stakeholders - labour lawyers, academics, employer representatives and trade unionists,"