KUALA LUMPUR, July 12 — The Professional Film Workers’ Association of Malaysia (Profima) is targeting 100 per cent of its members to contribute to the Social Security Organisation (Socso) by the middle of next year.
Its president, Khalil Salleh, said that Profima would be a corporate agent for Socso to ensure that its members give their full commitment to resolving welfare issues, especially pertaining to safety at filming locations and working hours of production crew.
Profima hopes to get a good response and full commitment from association members on this matter, to resolve the issues that have long been our focus, he said in a statement after visiting Socso’s headquarters here today.
According to Khalil, issues related to Socso contributions are one of Profima’s missions and struggles.
“Our priority is to resolve the welfare issues among our 23,000 registered members and 7,000 active members in the field, who have yet to benefit from Socso’s Self-employment Social Security Scheme under the arts sector,” he said.
Khalil said so far only 20 per cent of the film crew had contributed to Socso, and most of them were through employers who were involved in permanent employment of behind-the-scenes crew.
“Socso has shown the initiative to help film crew by allocating resources, but until now the self-employment contribution scheme has not received an encouraging response from the film and art community in the country, despite the discount given. Profima is one of the film associations that came forward to work together (with Socso),” he said.
