With suspension, MTUC cannot disburse RM1m compensation to workers

The continuous suspension of Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) by the Registrar of Society (ROS) will further impact the workers who were awarded more than RM1 million in total compensations by the Industrial Court.

MTUC president Abdul Halim Mansor (above) said in cases, where the workers represented by their trade unions won their suits against their employers in court, the compensation awarded would first be channelled to the bank account of MTUC and then disbursed to the workers.

However, Abdul Halim told a press conference yesterday, more than RM1 million in compensation payments was stuck in MTUC and could not be issued to the workers as its financial secretary stepped down and has been missing in action since Nov 9.

He said the MTUC's constitution does not authorise the second person to sign the checque on behalf of the financial secretary.

The matter is worsening after MTUC, a coalition of trade unions which represents half a million workers in the country, was temporary suspended on Dec 18 and barred from holding any meeting.

Abdul Halim said MTUC cannot hold a general council meeting, which was originally slated to be held this Sunday (Dec 29) to pick a date for its triennial general assembly and choose a new financial secretary.

Yesterday, Abdul Halim and MTUC secretary-general J Solomon (above) met Selangor ROS director Nurul Azhar Husin for one hour to explain why the union should not be deregistered.

Abdul Halim said he touched on the workers' plight in their appeal to the ROS and urged ROS to expedite its investigation against the union over mismanagement complaints.

"We appealed to ROS to allow us to conduct a general council meeting so we can (immediately) choose a financial secretary or a temporary financial secretary.

"I would say the (amount of compensation stuck in MTUC) is more than RM1 million because we still receive the money until today," he said.

While it was pointed out that the compensation amount in certain cases could climb up to RM100,000, Abdul Halim said he was more worried about the workers who waited for smaller compensation sums.

Workers told: 'Your money is safe.'

"What worries us is those with small compensations, because they really need the money," he said.

He told these workers: "Your money is still safe in MTUC, I urge (you all) to give us more time."

Abdul Halim said the ROS pledged to complete its probe and make known its findings by early January.

He also pointed out even if MTUC is allowed to conduct a meeting, it would still need a 12-week notice to call for a meeting.

He also said that ROS advised MTUC to amend its constitution to authorise another person to act on behalf of the financial secretary.

In a statement recently, the ROS said it received a complaint on July 2 about mismanagement in MTUC and opened an investigation the following month.

It said that on Dec 18, it issued a notice giving the MTUC 30 days to explain why it should not be deregistered.

ROS later confirmed that it had suspended MTUC to ensure that no other rules were broken by MTUC pending an explanation.

Last week, Sarawak MTUC secretary Andrew Lo made a serious claim that the MTUC had not convened a full general council meeting ever since the elections of the current top officials in 2016.

Another union source also told Malaysiakini that the MTUC leadership had, in fact, received a show-cause letter from the ROS about two months ago for its failure to conduct meetings as prescribed. - Mkini