PETALING JAYA: Have Malaysia Airlines (MAS) staff been short-changed in retrenchment benefits?

According to the Malaysia Airlines System Employees Union (Maseu) Collective Agreement (CA), all employees who have served up to 10 years are entitled to a severance package of one-month basic pay per year of service, while those who have served more than 10 years would receive 1.5 months.

On top of these payments, they are also entitled to ex gratia payments. However, in their termination letters made available to The Edge Financial Daily, the ex gratia and base payments were combined.

This means the employees are receiving less than one month or 1.5 months, respectively, in base pay — in breach of the airline’s sole shareholder Khazanah Nasional Bhd’s promise to honour CAs.

Maseu secretary-general Abdul Malek Ariff said in essence, the staff are only getting half-month salaries and the balance is ex gratia.

“Instead of paying 1.5 months, they pay 0.55 in base pay and then 0.95 in ex gratia,” he said.

“This is not what was promised. If the combo is base pay plus ex gratia, this means we are only receiving half-month basic pay per year of service,” he said when contacted.

Abdul Malek said the union had brought the matter numerous times in meetings with the management.

“But they did not want to talk about it. Their position was ‘you don’t ask about the CA’.”

He said Maseu had filed complaints with the International Labour Organisation, and is ready for a long-drawn legal battle for the employees to get what are due to them.

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on June 8, 2015.