Trade unions in Malaysia are regulated by the Trade Unions Act of 1959. Membership While the Malaysian constitution guarantees the rights of all Malaysians to form and join a trade union, there are several restrictions imposed by the laws relating to trade unions, i.e., the Trade Unions Act of 1959 and the Industrial Relations Act of 1967. The restrictive Trade Unions Act does not allow general unions for workers. Membership of any trade union is confined to only those who are employees of a particular industry, establishment, trade and occupation. For example, a bank employee could only be a member of a banking union, but cannot be a member of an airline union or teachers union while a hotel employee, a timber worker or a labourer could not be members of the same union. For enterprise or in-house union, membership is confined to employees of that particular establishment or company - employees of the company’s subsidiary or an associate company could not join that union. Temporary workers, contract workers including foreign workers could join union as members. However, most of the workers were reluctant to join a union for fear that their contract might not be renewed or work permit cancelled, making it difficult for a union to represent them. Generally managerial, executive, confidential and security employees cannot be members of a non-executive union, nor can they be represented by a union for the purpose of collective bargaining. The Trades Unions Act protects workers from being victimised by an employer for joining a union. However, the same section of an act states explicitly that an employer may dismiss, demote, transfer or refuse to promote a worker on other grounds. However, it has not stopped employers form dismissing trade union officials for writing Union circulars (Industrial Court Award Trienekens Sarawak Sdn Bhd) The Industrial Relations Act allows employers to prohibit management, executives and those who work in a confidential or security capacity from joining a union. The definitions of these terms are left to the employers' discretion. In practice, some employers classify all clerical staff as working in a confidential capacity and production workers as working in a security capacity since they oversee their machines. Should the Director General of Industrial Relations fail to get both parties to reach an agreement, the matter is referred to the Human Resources Minister. The minister will investigate and make a decision which may not