Employees Provident Fund

Unity Government and Reform · Treatise · 5 min read

Voluntary Contract, Structural Dependency

The compensation dispute over delivery riders' workplace injuries rests on a law enacted a century ago to abolish a colonial plantation middleman system

In 1955, the Employment Act 1955 abolished the Kangani system — a colonial middleman arrangement that kept plantation labourers bound to foremen through debt and debt-calculated wages. Seventy years later, platforms invoke the same act to demonstrate that riders "are not employees," and therefore owe no EPF or SOCSO contributions. 23.39% of riders earn below the minimum wage; between 2018 and 2022, 112 food delivery riders died in road accidents. On 28 August 2025, Parliament passed the Gig Workers Bill 2025. Protection has arrived — seventy years after the abolition of Kangani.