KUALA LUMPUR, 13 June 2025:
J. Solomon, a towering figure in Malaysian labour, both literally and figuratively, has found himself once more at the epicentre of a bruising struggle against the government and powerful corporations.
Having recently reclaimed leadership of the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) as chairman of its joint special committee, Solomon’s return to the forefront of the nation’s broader labour movement has immediately pitted him against Human Resources Minister Steven Sim, an adversary in a long line of government officials he has challenged over decades.
At 6 feet 2 inches height, Solomon’s imposing presence is hard to miss. In another life, perhaps in the US, his height might have paved the way for a basketball career.
But in his home country, his ambitions have always stretched far beyond the court – being singularly focused on championing the rights of Malaysia’s often-disenfranchised workers.
That fight has been the bedrock of his long tenure as the general-secretary of the National Union of Bank Employees (NUBE), where he consistently took on Malaysia’s powerful commercial banks and, by extension, the government.
Solomon’s modus operandi, honed over 23 years at NUBE, involves an aggressive pursuit of worker welfare. He has often accused the banks of preferring “to spend on lawyers rather than their employees,” and of seeking “government and court intervention to declare game over for NUBE, even before our play can begin.”
These arguments arose during the issue of the “Festival Aid” for bank employees, where NUBE fought to maintain a one-month festive bonus, a privilege taken for granted by peers in neighbouring Indonesia.
Solomon lambasted the double-standards of Malaysian banks with operations in Indonesia for following the law in Jakarta while denying their Malaysian workers the same bonus – despite their profitability at home, asking: “if you can do it in Indonesia, why can’t you do it here?”
His battles at NUBE went beyond bonuses or policies, targeting the dignity of labour, fair play and the need to push back against what he deemed a systemic bias against workers.
Unbowed, with interesting outcomes
Despite his uphill battles against powerful entities and successive governments, Solomon has remained unbowed. His success in extending social security benefits to millions of migrant workers in 2020 underscored his persistence.
Also, notwithstanding his face-offs with Malaysia’s banks, he interestingly became a “friend” to former CIMB chairman Tan Sri Nazir Razak, as the one-time adversary came to respect his rival’s dedication to dialogue.
Previously at the MTUC, Solomon’s advocacy made him a “traitor” in the eyes of some for airing Malaysia’s labour injustices on the international stage.
Back in the MTUC’s hot seat, Solomon’s latest skirmishes with Minister Sim stems from the exclusion of MTUC delegates from the International Labour Conference (ILC) in Geneva.
The MTUC, which represents virtually all Malaysian workers, was conspicuously absent from the official delegation, a decision Solomon labeled as “extreme embarrassment” for the nation.
Minister Sim has publicly argued that the exclusion was due to a “leadership vacuum” at the MTUC, citing a Kuala Lumpur Court of Appeal directive for a re-election of office bearers by 10 August 2025.
According to the minister, the Joint Special Committee chaired by Solomon was established solely to conduct this re-election and lacked the mandate to nominate international delegates. Sim also pointed to internal contests for the MTUC’s seat from various affiliate members.
Solomon dismisses these claims as mere excuses, asserting that the Joint Special Committee is the undisputed governing body of the MTUC. He accused Sim of misleading the public and of failing to engage with the committee when the ILC invitation was first received.
For Solomon, the episode is part of an 18-month “running battle” with Minister Sim, whom he repeatedly accused of “collusion with the banks” and “union-busting tactics.”
He argues that Sim’s actions, including a “clandestine meeting” with banks over the Festival Aid matter and unilaterally announcing a scaled-down festive bonus without NUBE’s consultation, undermine the very workers he is mandated to protect.
NUBE has even called for a Royal Commission of Inquiry to investigate Sim and his ministry.
To Solomon, his Geneva showdown with Sim wasn’t about personalities but about the core struggle to ensure the voice of Malaysian workers was heard and respected, whether at home or on the global stage.
It’s a point he has been unwavering over. Amid the raging dispute over the festival aid for banking workers, he was quoted saying while gazing at the Christmas lights in his home last year that he held on to profound hope in the “divine” that NUBE will prevail over the matter (it didn’t; the Industrial Court ruled in favour of the banks).
At the end of the day, the government and employers should expect workers to serve “without giving up our dignity”, he said then.