Labour Department Complaint Malaysia 2026: Which Door

Your employer has not paid you. Or has deducted something you never agreed to. Or has just let you go. In all three cases somebody will tell you to pergi complain kat labour office — and in one of the three that advice quietly costs you the case, because the door you need is in a different department of the same ministry.

A labour department complaint Malaysia handles is a money complaint: money claims go to the Department of Labour and are heard in the Labour Court under the Employment Act 1955. Getting your job back is not a money claim. It belongs to the Department of Industrial Relations under a different statute, and it carries a 60-day deadline that nothing on the Labour Department’s side will remind you about. This page is the routing question first, the procedure second. Peninsular Malaysia and the Federal Territory of Labuan run on the Employment Act 1955; Sabah and Sarawak run on their own ordinances and get a section near the end.

Quick Answer: money owed to you — unpaid wages, an unpaid maternity allowance, an unused annual leave balance, wages in lieu of notice — goes to the nearest Labour Office and is heard in the Labour Court under section 69 of the Employment Act 1955: in person, no filing fee, no ceiling on the amount that can be ordered. A dismissal you say was without just cause or excuse goes instead to the Director General for Industrial Relations under section 20 of the Industrial Relations Act 1967, in writing, within 60 days.

• The thing most people get wrong: a complaint and a labour case are two different files at the same counter. A complaint asks the department to investigate your employer; a labour case asks the Labour Court to order him to pay you.
• The cap people still quote does not exist: sections 69B to 69E were all deleted, and section 69 says the Director General may order such sum as he deems just, without limitation of the amount.
• The deadline nobody diarises: 60 days from the dismissal for a section 20 representation — or, if you were dismissed with notice, 60 days from the expiry of that notice, and you may file during the notice itself.

Which officeWhat it hearsWhere to fileThe deadlines

Two departments, and picking the wrong one costs you the deadline

Both departments sit inside the Ministry of Human Resources. Both have a Director General. They are not the same Director General, and that is the whole reason this page exists. The Employment Act 1955 defines its own as the Director General of Labour; the Industrial Relations Act 1967 has the Yang di-Pertuan Agong appoint a separate Director General for Industrial Relations with general direction, control and supervision of all matters relating to industrial relations.

The split gets cleaner once you stop asking who was at fault and start asking what you want. If the answer is money, it is the Labour Department. If the answer is my job back, it is Industrial Relations. And the Act enforces the split from one side: section 69A says that notwithstanding section 69, the Director General shall not inquire into, hear, decide or make any order on a claim which, in accordance with the Industrial Relations Act 1967, is pending under that Act, has been decided upon by the Minister, or has gone to the Industrial Court. File at Industrial Relations first and the Labour Court is shut for the same dispute.

What the Labour Court can hear, and the cap that no longer exists

The Department of Labour puts it plainly: monetary claims by employers and employees are handled in the Labour Court under section 69 of the Employment Act 1955, and employees may also file under section 69F for discrimination at the workplace. The wording is wider than “wages” — section 69(1) reaches a dispute over wages or any other payments in cash due under any term of the contract of service, under the Act or its subsidiary legislation, or under the Wages Councils Act 1947.

Then the sentence the internet keeps getting wrong. Section 69(1) ends by saying the Director General may order payment of such sum of money as he deems just without limitation of the amount thereof. There is no ringgit ceiling. The old ones lived in sections 69B to 69E, and the reprint now prints all four the same way: (Deleted by Act A1651). A page that tells you the Labour Court can only hear claims up to some figure is quoting a section that no longer exists.

What does still limit things is the First Schedule, and it limits what you can claim rather than how much. Paragraph 1 covers any person who has entered into a contract of service, with no wage ceiling. Paragraph 1A then disapplies five provisions to a person whose wages exceed RM 4,000 a month — subsections 60(3), 60A(3), 60C(2A), 60D(3) and 60D(4), and section 60J. JTKSM turns that into a plain list: employees earning more than RM 4,000, except manual employees, cannot claim overtime, rest-day pay, paid-holiday pay, shift work allowance, or termination and lay-off benefits. The carve-out is First Schedule paragraph 2, which covers manual labour and four other categories irrespective of wages. For the pay side of that line see 👉 Overtime Pay Calculation Malaysia 2026: Rates and Caps, and for the benefits side 👉 Retrenchment Compensation Malaysia 2026: The Formula.

Four claim types are named by the department itself: financial claims under the contract of service, such as salary and allowances; financial claims under the Employment Act 1955, its examples being elaun bersalin (maternity allowance), gaji ganti notis (wages in lieu of notice), baki cuti tahunan (unused annual leave) and gaji kerja lebih masa (overtime wages); financial claims under the Wages Councils Act 1947, minimum wage being the example; and an application to set aside your employer’s own internal disciplinary decision. Employers get one claim type in return: wages in lieu of notice.

Two teeth worth knowing about. An order under section 69 carries interest at eight per cent a year from the 31st day after it is made until it is satisfied. And failing to comply is itself an offence: a fine not exceeding RM 50,000, plus a daily fine not exceeding RM 1,000 for each day it continues after conviction — figures the Act’s own footnotes record as RM 10,000 and RM 100 before Act A1651.

A complaint and a labour case are not the same thing

Same building, same officers, two different files. A labour complaint is a compliance matter: JTKSM investigates complaints between employee and employer to ensure compliance with the laws it enforces, and an employee may complain about a breach of the terms and conditions of service or any other employment-related issue. The outcome is an investigation and, where the department finds something, enforcement against the employer. It is not an order that you be paid. Knowing which term of your employment contract was actually broken decides which of the two doors you need.

A labour case is the money claim itself, and it ends in an order. The department’s own list of possible outcomes is short and honest: an order that the employer pay the complainant; an order that the employee pay wages in lieu of notice to the employer; an order striking the case out; or the case being cancelled, which happens when the complainant withdraws or does not turn up on a fixed date. Two of those four are ways to lose, and one of them is losing by not attending.

Most people want both, and nothing stops you doing both. But they are filed differently. A complaint can go in by letter, by e-mail, through the Sistem Pengurusan Aduan Awam (SISPAA), through the Working for Workers application, or in person at the nearest Labour Office. A labour case cannot: you attend in person to have your statement taken.

Filing: where you go, what you bring, what it costs

Where. The nearest Labour Office to your place of employment. The department answers this with a worked example: a complainant who works in Kuala Lumpur but lives in Kelantan can file in Kelantan, but the case will be handled by the Kuala Lumpur office, with both parties called there for the mention and the hearing.

How. In person, to have evidence taken. Where there is more than one complainant, one of you must be appointed head complainant — the administrative version of section 72, which lets employees with a common cause of complaint against the same employer act for the rest. Section 70 allows the complaint to be presented in writing or made in person, and either way it must state the remedy you are asking for. You are then examined on oath and the substance goes into the officer’s case book.

What to bring. Identity document, appointment letter or contract of service, payslips, and the termination letter where relevant. An employer’s representative filing against an employee needs a letter of authority. If you have nothing in writing, bring what you do have — the scheme runs on sworn evidence, not on a document checklist.

What it costs. Nothing. The department’s answer is one line: no payment or charge is imposed when filing a case. Section 74 backs it up — no fee shall be charged for any summons issued under Part XV. You are entitled to a copy of the decision and order free of charge; only a copy of the full record attracts the prescribed fee. And section 81 makes it a standalone rule that no employer shall prevent or attempt to prevent an employee from appearing before the Director General under Part XV.

What happens next, and the timeframes each department publishes

After filing, the office fixes a mention date. Both sides are called and both get a chance to discuss the claim. If they agree, the officer issues a consent order and that is the end of it. If not, another date is fixed for the hearing. Section 70 fills in what the officer may do along the way: summon the party complained against, summon witnesses for either side, and — the part worth reading twice — hear and decide the complaint in the absence of a party who was duly summoned and did not attend.

An ignored order does not stay a piece of paper. Under section 75 the Director General may send a certified copy to the Registrar of a Sessions Court or a First Class Magistrate’s Court, where it is recorded and becomes enforceable as that court’s own judgment — explicitly so even where the amount exceeds that court’s ordinary jurisdiction.

The appeal goes to the High Court. Section 77 gives the right to any person whose financial interests are affected by an order under section 69, 69F or 73, or subsection 81D(4), with the procedure of a civil appeal from a Sessions Court. The Act prints no period; the department does, and it is short: 14 days from the date the order was issued.

How long the whole thing takes is not published as a statistic anywhere. What is published is a client charter — a service promise, not a statutory deadline, and a rough yardstick rather than a guarantee.

Unfair dismissal: 60 days, IRIS, and no lawyer in the room

Here is the door the Labour Office cannot open for you. Section 20(1) of the Industrial Relations Act 1967 says that where a workman, whether or not a union member, considers he has been dismissed without just cause or excuse, he may make representations in writing to the Director General to be reinstated, filed at the office nearest the place of employment he was dismissed from. Workman is defined without a wage ceiling: any person, including an apprentice, employed under a contract of employment to work for hire or reward. That is why section 20 reaches people the pay provisions of the Employment Act do not.

Then subsection (1A), which is where cases die. The Director General shall not entertain a representation unless it is filed within 60 days of the dismissal — with a proviso that where a workman is dismissed with notice, he may file at any time during that notice but not later than 60 days from its expiry. The department’s page compresses that into “within 60 days after the date of dismissal” plus “it can also be submitted during the notice period”, which is right but loses the part that matters most if you were given notice: the clock starts when the notice runs out, not when the letter arrives. Representations can be filed online through IRIS.

What happens then is conciliation, not a trial. The department uses alternative dispute resolution and fixes a meeting at which employer and employee attend face to face, online in some cases. If a settlement is reached, a Memorandum of Agreement is signed and the case closes once its terms are complied with. If the Director General is satisfied there is no likelihood of settlement, the representation goes to the Industrial Court for an award — and section 20(4) adds that once an award is made it bars any action for damages for wrongful dismissal in any court. One route, not two.

Two details people are routinely surprised by. First, attendance is the whole game. The department says a case may be treated as withdrawn if the employee fails to attend three scheduled conciliation sessions; section 20(9) puts it differently, deeming the representation withdrawn where the workman attends none of the conferences without reasonable excuse. Both are printed because they are not the same sentence, and the department’s version is the stricter one to plan around. Second, no lawyers. Section 20(6) lets each side appear personally, or through a trade union officer, an official of a registered organisation, or any other person except an advocate and solicitor with written authority and the Director General’s permission; subsection (7) closes it.

If it reaches the Industrial Court, the money side is capped even though the section 69 side is not. The Second Schedule says backwages shall not exceed 24 months from the date of dismissal on last-drawn salary, and not exceed 12 months for a probationer; post-dismissal earnings are deducted at a percentage the Court decides; and contributory misconduct is taken into account. While the case runs, income is a separate question 👉 EIS Claim Malaysia 2026: Job Search Allowance, which has a clock of its own.

The deadlines that exist, and the one nobody publishes

Start with the one that catches people dismissed for misconduct. Section 14(1) is the employer’s power: on the grounds of misconduct inconsistent with the express or implied conditions of service, after due inquiry, an employer may dismiss without notice, downgrade, or impose a lesser punishment — and suspension without wages shall not exceed two weeks. Section 69(3) lets the Director General confirm or set aside that decision. But the third proviso is a hard gate: he shall not exercise that power unless the employee has complained under Part XV within 60 days from the date on which the decision under section 14 is communicated, orally or in writing. Communicated orally counts. The clock can start with a conversation.

Read what that route can deliver before choosing it. Where a dismissal under paragraph 14(1)(a) is set aside, the first proviso confines the consequential order to indemnity in lieu of notice and other payments the employee would have been entitled to as if no misconduct had been committed. Money, not the job. Reinstatement comes only from the other department, on the other clock — and section 69A means you cannot run both at once on the same dispute.

Now the gap, stated plainly because pretending otherwise would be worse. No official page read for this article publishes a deadline for filing a money claim under section 69, and Part XV of the Employment Act 1955 contains no limitation period. The only six-year periods in the Act are record-keeping duties on the employer: the rest-day roster under subsection 60(3) and the register of employees under subsection 61(2) — duties on him, not a window for you. Whether some other statute bars an old claim is a question for the Labour Office or a lawyer; the practical reading is the sooner the better, while the payslips and the register still exist.

What the Act does fix is when the money became payable, which is usually the date your claim is really about. Section 19 requires wages, less lawful deductions, to be paid not later than the seventh day after the last day of a wage period, with rest-day, public-holiday and overtime pay due not later than the last day of the next wage period. Section 20 of the same Act — not the section 20 above — requires wages earned but unpaid to be paid not later than the day a contract terminates under subsection 11(1) or section 12, and section 15(1) deems an employer to have broken the contract if he fails to pay wages in accordance with Part III. Section 13(1) is the mirror image for notice, and the basis of most wages-in-lieu claims in both directions. If the leave rather than the pay went missing, the entitlements are at 👉 Leave Entitlement Malaysia 2026: Annual, Sick, Holidays and 👉 Maternity and Paternity Leave Malaysia 2026.

Discrimination, harassment and gig work: three side doors

Discrimination. Section 69F lets the Director General decide a dispute over discrimination in employment and order redress, with a fine of up to RM 50,000 plus a daily fine of up to RM 1,000 for each day non-compliance continues after conviction, but the protection reaches only someone who has already entered into a contract of service, not a rejected job applicant.

Sexual harassment. A complaint goes to the employer first, who must inquire and, if it refuses, give written reasons within 30 days of receiving the complaint, after which the complainant may refer the matter to the Director General.

Gig work. JTKSM’s own enforcement page for the Gig Workers Act 2025 points complaints elsewhere: to the ministry’s own channel at eaduan-gig.mohr.gov.my, which has its own dispute-resolution mechanism and tribunal. If a work injury rather than pay is the issue, that is a third agency again 👉 SOCSO Claim Malaysia 2026: Injury & Invalidity.

Sabah and Sarawak: same courtroom, different section numbers

Nothing above is Sabah or Sarawak law. Those states run on the Labour Ordinance (Sabah Cap. 67) and the Labour Ordinance (Sarawak Cap. 76), and both departments describe the forum the way the peninsula does: a tribunal known as the Mahkamah Buruh, where officers authorised by the Director hear both sides, weigh the documents and decide. The filing process is recognisably the same — attend in person, give a sworn statement, bring the same documents, plus a joint-claim authorisation signed by everyone claiming if there is more than one of you.

What does not transfer is the citation. Quote section 69 in Kuching and you are quoting the wrong statute.

One caution about reading department pages. Jabatan Tenaga Kerja Sabah’s claim-types page carries two blocks that do not agree: the upper one lists sections 7A and 18A, matching the amended Ordinance, while the lower one still names Seksyen 7C and a band of employees whose wages exceed RM 2,000 but do not exceed RM 5,000 — and Act A1753 deleted section 7c outright, in force 1 May 2025. Go by the upper block, and if a counter tells you a wage band applies, ask which section it is under.

One convenience Sabah publishes and the others do not: ezLabourCase, an online lookup where you pick the labour office and enter your case number to see the schedule of activity on it. It checks a case that already exists; it is not a way to file one. Fifteen Sabah labour offices appear in its list.

Walaoeh Verdict

Answer one question before you go anywhere: money, or the job? Everything follows from it. Money means the Labour Office nearest where you worked — in person, free, no ceiling on what can be ordered, no published deadline to race. The job means a written representation to the Director General for Industrial Relations, 60 days, and section 69A shutting the Labour Court on the same dispute once you are in that lane. People lose cases by filing the money claim, waiting, and discovering the 60 days went by while they waited.

Then write down three dates. The day the money fell due — the seventh day after the wage period under section 19, or the last day of the contract under section 20. The day any disciplinary decision was communicated to you, including orally, because that starts the 60 days in the section 69(3) proviso. And the day of the dismissal, or the day your notice expires if you were given notice, because that is where the other 60 days runs from.

Two things deliberately not printed above. A filing deadline for a wage claim: none of the three labour departments publishes one, and Part XV has no limitation period, so no number is given here rather than an invented one. And how long a real case takes: only the client charter targets appear, labelled as targets. Both are gaps in what is published, not gaps in the research, and both are worth asking about at the counter — where the answer is free.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

Every figure above comes from one of these, all checked on 19 September 2026.

• Laws of Malaysia, Act 265 — Employment Act 1955, updated text as at 1 January 2023, hosted by JTKSM. Sections 13 to 15, 19, 20, 60, 61, 69 to 69F, 70 to 78, 81, 99A, Part XVA and the First Schedule.
• JTKSM — Labour Case, Labour Case FAQ and Aduan. Claim types, who may file, the five payments above RM 4,000 that cannot be claimed, filing in person, the documents, no fee, the mention-and-hearing process, the 14-day appeal and the channels.
• JTKSM — Client’s Charter and the Employment Act 1955 (Amendment) 2022 FAQ. The 21 working days and 90 days targets, and the discrimination answers including the limit to someone already under a contract of service.
• Laws of Malaysia, Act 177 — Industrial Relations Act 1967, updated text as at 1 November 2021, hosted by JPPM. Section 20 and the Second Schedule.
• JPPM — EMS: Pembuangan Kerja (Seksyen 20) and Piagam Pelanggan. The 60 days, IRIS, conciliation, the three-session rule, referral to the Industrial Court, the bar on advocates, and the 3-day and 14-day targets.
• Jabatan Tenaga Kerja Sabah — Tuntutan Kes Buruh, Aduan Buruh dan Khidmat Nasihat, Piagam Pelanggan and ezLabourCase. Sections 7A and 18A, the 60 days, the documents, the channels, the 7-day and 21-day targets, and the older block that still names section 7c.
• Jabatan Tenaga Kerja Sarawak — Tuntutan Kes Buruh, Aduan Perburuhan and Piagam Pelanggan. Sections 8A and 19A, the 60 days, the channels, and the 30-day and 90-day targets.
• Amendment acts — Act A1753 with P.U. (B) 166, and Act A1754 with P.U. (B) 165. The deletion of sections 7c to 7e and 8c to 8e, in force 1 May 2025 except Part IVA.
• Ministry of Human Resources — Akta Pekerja Gig 2025 and JTKSM’s enforcement page. The eAduanGIG channel and the names of the dispute mechanism and tribunal.