Riot speaks on 3,600 laid-off MAS staff

Minister Datuk Seri Richard Riot Jaem nonetheless said that the ministry, through the Industrial Relations Department, had sent out letters to the affected workers explaining the situation.

The letters, he said, had to date been sent to some 1,500 of the 3,600 laid-off unionised MAS staff.

"That to me is sufficient as a response... we're not required by law to give an explanation," he told reporters after opening the ASEAN Productivity-Linked Wage Conference here today.

Riot also noted that MAS was no longer in existence and as the company had wound up, the ministry could not go after it.

Last month, the National Union of Flight Attendants Malaysia questioned why it took the ministry two years to decide not to refer the cases of 3,600 retrenched MAS workers to the Industrial Court.

Queried on this matter, department director-general Khalid Jali said this was due to a moratorium on the transition of MAS to Malaysia Airlines Berhad (MAB) which had been in place. It ended on May 24, 2017.

On the conference, he said it was important for companies in ASEAN, especially Malaysia, to adopt the Productivity-Linked Wage System (PLWS) to increase growth and productivity.

Riot said more than 81,000 companies in Malaysia had to date adopted the system involving 3.7 million employees.

He hoped that recommendations made at the one-day conference would be communicated to the ASEAN Senior Labour Officials Meeting scheduled for May 2018.

Themed 'Enhancing Wage Structure that Promotes Wealth Creation and Wealth Sharing', the conference organised by the ministry saw the participation of 250 senior officials from ASEAN countries as well as representatives from Japan, China and South Korea.