KUALA LUMPUR, June 2 — A private executive taxi company here is offering up to 800 positions for the over 6,000 workers retrenched by Malaysia Airlines System (MAS).
Big Blue Taxi Services advisor Datuk Shamsubahrin Ismail said today that he is extending the offer to the redundant employees to be taxi drivers under his banner where they could earn around RM300 to RM400 per day.
“I am offering 500 to 800 positions in my company to help out these MAS workers. The offer might not be great but they will be able to save their families,” he told reporters at a press conference today.
Shamsubahrin also warned National Union of Flight Attendants Malaysia (Nufam) president Ismail Nasaruddin against protesting the layoffs that are part of the airline’s restructuring.
Blaming the workers for being partly responsible for MAS’s downfall, he also said they were well compensated as part of the layoffs.
“Ismail has to be realistic about what is happening. The biggest contributor to the downfall is not just the company but the workers also.
“They have a union; when the union cannot control their staff properly and the productivity level is bad. You can’t be blaming everyone else,” Shamsubahrin said.
He added protesting the decision will “blacklist the workers from being hired by other companies”, as they would view such individuals as problematic.
Shamsubahrin also urged Nufam to “move on” from the current imbroglio and instead motivate the laid off workers to be open in accepting job offers elsewhere.
Malaysia Airlines Bhd has replaced MAS as a new legal entity, with Christoph Mueller remaining as its chief executive.
The carrier also confirmed that previously disclosed plans to cut 6,000 jobs to cut its workforce to a more sustainable 14,000 employees are being implemented.
Mueller told The Star on Friday that overtime claims abuses, frivolous allowances and employee perks were why MAS was in financial hardship and needed to let thousands of its employees go.
The national carrier was delisted in August after sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional offered to buy out minority shareholders for a total of RM1.38 billion to restructure MAS, which suffered two air disasters this year.
The total takeover will cost Khazanah RM6 billion after the twin tragedies of MH370 and MH17 had threatened to overwhelm MAS’s finances.
The sovereign wealth fund later unveiled a 12-point turnaround plan for the national carrier, titled “Rebuilding A National Icon — The MAS Recovery Plan”, which includes transferring all MAS assets to the new entity.
Shamsubahrin was in the news last month after he was convicted of cheating National Feedlot Corporation executive chairman Datuk Dr Mohamad Salleh Ismail and 17 counts of money laundering.
