PUTRAJAYA: The Industrial Relations Act 1967 (Act 177) which was amended in December last year will come into force on Jan 1, 2021 to improve the protection of workers’ rights in the country, said Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M Saravanan.

He said the key areas of amendments included the repeal of the human resources minister’s power to refer representations on dismissal cases to the Industrial Court which will instead be given to the Director-General for Industrial Relations as well as the repeal of discretionary power to refer cases to the Industrial Court without further filtering.