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PETALING JAYA: The Malaysian National Union of Flight Attendants (Nufam) has urged the government to review the management position of Malaysia Airlines (MAB) before injecting more money into the ailing national airline.
Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz was quoted by Nikkei Asia yesterday as saying that the airline’s sole shareholder, Khazanah Nasional, was tasked with ensuring that it “remains in a position of strength to support the economy when it recovers.”
The Edge Weekly reported last week that the MAB may be requesting up to 2.1 billion ringgit in financial assistance from Khazanah, after announcing an urgent debt restructuring worth 16 billion ringgit amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
While Nufam applauded the government’s decision to help the airline, it said it did not want the MAB to “abuse taxpayer money” as it had already lost billions prior to the Covid-19 outbreak.
“We thank the government for its support in reviving the airline industry and for offering help to affected workers in the industry, but we want it to take seriously the problems of huge losses.
“There are liability issues here and therefore, as a union, we are raising the red flag now,” he said today in a statement.
The union said it was “unfair” for the government to keep pouring more money into MAB “only for the airline to keep holding the same people responsible for losses over the years.”
Stating that there has been a “constant disharmony in the work environment” since the MAB was restructured in 2015, he added that there was an abuse of power by top management against low-ranking workers who were fired or asked to do so. to leave during the pandemic.
Nufam also alleged that the airline had “unnecessarily spent millions of ringgit in taxpayer money in unnecessary legal disputes with the union.”
He rebuked the government for “ignoring these enormous losses” and continuing to pay “the best wages to the same team of people to manage the national assets and the welfare of the workers.”
