AFTER years of being around in the country, Malaysia’s 1.2 million gig workers are finally getting a law to call their own.
Called the Gig Workers Bill 2025, it was tabled in Parliament for the first reading yesterday. But not everyone is happy with the bill as it is, including gig workers.
Start with the gig workers. If their take on the new law is anything to go by, it is a story of good news and not so good news.
E-hailing driver Muhammad Azahari Mazlan may have spoken for the rest of the gig workers when he told this newspaper that the bill should start by resolving fundamental issues: wages, pay standards and how platforms manage their rules.
When such rules remain opaque, drivers are up against disputes of all kinds with the gig operators and end up paying out-of-pocket expenses.
Other sticking points are costs related to annual registration and maintenance of vehicles, Puspakom inspections and insurance premiums that e-hailers have long wanted such a bill to address.
The eHailing Malaysia Coalition, a loose grouping of e-hailing driver associations, while describing the bill as a “game-changer”, pointed to gaps that remain unaddressed.
One such is the issue of minimum income, which the coalition sees as crucial to protect gig workers from unfair pay rates. Another is access to flexible retirement savings.
A think tank, on the other hand, had more warnings than praises for the Gig Workers Bill 2025. My Mobility Vision chief executive officer Wan Agyl Wan Hassan highlighted the minimum compensation framework aimed at guaranteeing fairness as one.
The intention is noble, but the operational implications remain unclear, he told the New Sunday Times.
To him, minimum income is not the only issue. In his view, a Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) is one way to surface the operational implications of the bill as a whole.
Strangely, this wasn’t done despite a circular issued by the chief secretary to the government in 2012 calling for the RIA for all proposed policies and legal amendments, he pointed out. “What we need is a time-bound, transparent review to be conducted with workers, platforms and policy experts. This isn’t about delay. It’s about getting it right.”
Platform industry players, too, have their concerns. While welcoming regulations that provide better worker protection, they call for the bill’s cost impact on the economy to be assessed carefully — the RIA point of Wan Agyl.
An understandable call given the current cost of living issues Malaysians are facing.
Although the industry players have the choice to either swallow the increases in cost or pass them on to the consumers, they are likely to opt for the latter.
Compassionate capitalism is an oxymoron anyway. But the gig economy operators will do well to remember that if their prices are too high, consumers will stop using their service.
The Gig Workers Bill’s goal appears to be to protect gig workers without hurting the platform industry players. A tough balancing act, we must say.
© New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd
