Haze at work in Malaysia: When must your employer act, and can you step away?

About this guide: This explainer uses an incident reported on 2026-08-12 as a starting point. The legal rules below are general; they do not decide anyone's guilt, liability or individual case.

Decision tree · OSHA text checked 27 August 2026

Report, control, step away or escalate?

1. Check the nearest official APIMS reading and record the station, time, task, exposure, controls and any symptoms. API is evidence, not an automatic legal stop-work threshold.
2. Report the risk in writing to your supervisor, safety officer or HR and request a specific control: move indoors, reschedule, rotate, shorten exposure or use a cleaner rest area.
3. If you have a medical vulnerability, seek medical advice and give the employer the functional restriction needed, without unnecessary private details.
4. If you reasonably believe there is an imminent serious risk of death or serious bodily injury, tell the employer or representative and ask them to remove it.
5. If that imminent danger remains and section 26A applies, move to a safe place, preserve the report and response, and use DOSH's official complaint route if unresolved.

What happened

Haze returned as a practical workplace issue in August 2026. New Straits Times reported on 11 August that Serian recorded an Air Pollutant Index, or API, reading of 190, while Johan Setia in Klang recorded 151. Both figures sit in the official 'unhealthy' band of 101 to 200. DayakDaily independently reported that Serian was at 190 at 6pm on the same day, with ten other Sarawak locations also above 100. These are time-specific readings, not permanent labels: air quality can move during a shift and differs by monitoring station.

The effects were not abstract. The Star reported on 12 August that Sarawakians were changing outdoor routines, a school athletics championship had been postponed, and a construction company was paying particular attention to outdoor employees. Its safety manager said staff with respiratory or other health concerns were encouraged to minimise outdoor exposure, work indoors where practical, or adjust their activities. That is useful evidence of the sort of operational response employers can consider; it is not a universal legal formula for every workplace.

For a Malaysian employee, the important legal question is therefore not simply, 'Is the API unhealthy?' It is, 'What risk does this air create in my actual work, and what has my employer done about it?' A delivery rider outdoors for hours, a construction worker doing strenuous labour, a security guard at an open gate and an office worker in a filtered building do not face identical exposure. The law is built around that real workplace risk rather than a single automatic shutdown number.

The legal insight: what law applies

Start with section 15 of the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994. It requires every employer to ensure, so far as is practicable, the safety, health and welfare at work of all employees. The duty expressly includes safe systems of work, necessary information, instruction, training and supervision, a working environment that is safe and without risks to health so far as practicable, and procedures for workplace emergencies. 'So far as is practicable' does not mean 'only if convenient'. It requires a real judgment about the severity and likelihood of harm, what is known about the risk, and whether available controls are suitable and proportionate.

Section 18B makes the process more concrete. Every employer, self-employed person or principal must conduct a risk assessment for safety and health risks posed to anyone who may be affected by the undertaking at the workplace. If the assessment shows that risk control is required to eliminate or reduce the risk, the relevant person must implement that control. During haze, that points to an assessment tied to the job and current conditions: where the worker is, how long the exposure lasts, how physically demanding the work is, whether cleaner indoor space is available, and whether the worker has reported a health vulnerability. The statute does not prescribe one fixed haze checklist, but it does require assessment followed by control when control is needed.

Controls should follow the risk rather than become a box-ticking exercise. Depending on the workplace, practicable steps may include monitoring the nearest official API reading during the shift, moving tasks indoors, reducing or rescheduling strenuous outdoor work, rotating staff, providing cleaner rest areas, improving filtration where the employer controls the premises, and setting a clear reporting and escalation procedure. Protective equipment may be part of a control plan, but handing out an unsuitable mask and carrying on as normal is not automatically enough. The employer still has to assess whether the overall system of work reduces the actual risk.

Section 26A creates a distinct employee right, but its threshold is deliberately high. A worker who has reasonable justification to believe there is an 'imminent danger' at the workplace must first inform the employer or the employer's representative. If the employer then fails to take action to remove the danger, the worker has the right to remove themselves from the danger or the work. A worker who acts in accordance with the section is protected against undue consequences and discrimination. The Act defines imminent danger as a serious risk of death or serious bodily injury caused by a workplace hazard, condition, activity, process, practice or procedure.

That definition is why an API above 100 is not an automatic legal switch allowing every worker to walk off every job. An unhealthy reading is serious evidence that should prompt assessment and controls, but section 26A asks whether this worker has reasonable grounds for the much narrower conclusion that the situation presents a serious risk of death or serious bodily injury, and whether the employer failed to act after being told. Exposure intensity, work duration, symptoms, medical vulnerability, the available controls and the speed at which harm may occur can all matter. The Department of Occupational Safety and Health's worker-rights guide says the danger should be capable of causing death or serious bodily injury immediately or within a short time, and advises the worker to notify the employer promptly while the employer immediately examines and addresses the danger.

There is another protection worth knowing. Section 27 says an employer must not dismiss an employee, injure them in their employment or alter their position to their detriment merely because they made a complaint about something they consider unsafe or a risk to health. This protection for making a safety complaint is broader in purpose than the right to remove yourself under section 26A. It means the sensible first move is a clear, documented report: identify the place, time, API source, work being performed, symptoms or medical concern, and the specific control requested.

How does this impact me?

If you work indoors, do not assume the outdoor API tells you exactly what you are breathing at your desk. Ask what the building is doing: are doors and windows being managed, is the ventilation system bringing in unfiltered air, are filters maintained, and is there a cleaner room for breaks? If you can smell smoke or develop eye, throat or breathing symptoms, report that evidence. A manager who says 'the office has air-conditioning' has not necessarily answered whether the indoor environment is being controlled.

If you work outdoors, the exposure picture is easier to see but still needs detail. Keep a record of the nearest official monitoring station and time, the hours you were outdoors, the task and its physical intensity, the breaks and protective measures offered, and any symptoms. Ask for a practical adjustment: a later start, shorter outdoor blocks, task rotation, indoor duties or a cleaner rest area. The law is more useful when the request is connected to the risk than when the conversation begins and ends with 'I refuse to work'.

If you have asthma, chronic respiratory disease, heart disease or another condition that makes haze more dangerous for you, tell the appropriate manager or HR contact what adjustment you need. You do not need to circulate your full medical history to colleagues. A medical note that states functional limits, such as avoiding prolonged or strenuous outdoor exposure during unhealthy air, can help the employer assess your particular risk. Seek medical care promptly for significant breathing difficulty, chest pain, fainting or rapidly worsening symptoms rather than treating the employment dispute as the first priority.

If you believe the situation has reached section 26A's imminent-danger threshold, use the statutory sequence where you safely can. Tell the employer or representative immediately, state the grounds for your belief, and ask them to remove the danger. Keep the message and any response. If they fail to act and you remove yourself, move to a safe place rather than simply disappearing. Continue trying to notify the employer if the representative cannot be reached. DOSH's official guide expressly recognises that a worker who has tried in good faith but cannot reach the employer may go to a safe place and continue attempts to inform them.

What this incident teaches us

The first lesson is that an API category and a legal threshold do different jobs. The API tells the public about ambient air quality at a station. Section 18B asks the employer to turn available information into a workplace risk assessment. Section 26A then asks an even narrower question about imminent danger and serious harm. Collapsing all three into 'API 101 means no work' is attractive because it is simple, but it is not what the statute says.

The second lesson is that general duties can be more useful than waiting for a haze-specific order. Section 15 already covers the working environment, information, supervision and systems of work. Section 18B already requires assessment and controls. An employer cannot defend inaction simply by saying there is no government announcement closing all workplaces. The absence of a blanket closure does not erase the employer's duty to address the risk in front of it.

The third lesson is that documentation protects both sides. A worker's dated report shows what the employer was told and why the concern was reasonable. The employer's assessment, monitoring record and control plan show what was considered and done. This turns a vague disagreement about whether it 'looked hazy' into an auditable safety process. It also allows the plan to change as readings, work locations and symptoms change.

The final lesson is not to make the mask the whole policy. Personal protective equipment sits at the end of a risk-control conversation, not the beginning. Work can sometimes be moved, delayed, shortened or reorganised so that exposure is reduced before relying on equipment. What is practicable will differ, but the employer should be able to explain why the chosen controls match the task and current risk.

The verdict

Haze is a workplace safety issue when it affects the conditions in which people work, even though the pollution began outside the workplace. Malaysian law does not create a simple API-based right for everyone to stop work. It creates something more careful: a broad employer duty to keep work safe so far as practicable, a mandatory risk-assessment and control process, protection for safety complaints, and a specific right to remove yourself when the strict section 26A conditions for imminent danger are met. Report early, ask for controls that fit your job, keep evidence and reserve section 26A for the serious situation it was written to cover.