Former Utusan workers commemorate newspaper’s ‘death’, demand compensation

SHAH ALAM - A total of 300 former Utusan Melayu (Utusan) staffs attended a reunion ceremony to commemorate the 'death' of the oldest Malay newspaper company in front of its former headquarters building in Kuala Lumpur today.

The assembly held at Jalan Utusan, Chan Sow Lin, was attended by representatives of all former workers of different statuses and marked the third anniversary of the closure of Utusan.

The meeting symbolises the solidarity of former Utusan staff accompanied by former employees regardless of rank and status, whether fired after the company was shut down, voluntary separation scheme (VSS) participants, retired or quit.

The rally organising committee chairman Saifol Bakhtiar Hamik said the main purpose of the gathering was to gather all the former Utusan workers and establish friendships with each other.

"Although the Utusan company is no longer here, the history, spirit and services of the institution are still there that still flows in every former employee," said Saifol who was also the Utusan Badan Keluarga chairman during the event.

In addition, he said, the purpose of the rally was also to give a message to the public and national leaders, especially Umno who was the former owner of the company that the fate of and the welfare of the 1,500 former Utusan staff who were dismissed and who were recruited VSS was still neglected after the company closed down on Oct 9, 2019.

"Until now, a total of 13 people died without getting paid a cent even compensation or arrears of VSS balance with 23 other former staff members who are in poor condition due to suffering from various diseases after the company was closed," he said.

Accordingly, the gathering also aimed to urge the liquidators of UHY Malaysia (who took over the affairs of the liquidator of Utusan's assets) to immediately make the payment mandatory/statutory in accordance with the Companies Act and the Workers' Act, compensation and arrears VSS that has been dependent for the past three years.

"As we can see, the Utusan logo sign has been taken down from the former headquarters building of the newspaper company and its factory in Bangi recently, this shows that buildings that are estimated to be worth more than RM150 million have been sold," he said.

In addition, he claimed a survey of the assets and buildings belonging to Utusan worth hundreds of ringgit nationwide had also been transferred because the building or the offices were demolished and rebuilt by the new owners.

Bakhtiar claimed the excuses by UHY that many Utusan’s assets could not be sold due to Covid-19 and the company had no money to pay the ex-staff as well as the backlog of VSS was illogical.

He said the assembly also called for Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob to intervene and defend the fate of former Utusan staff who have been with the newspaper for a long time to support the struggle of the Malays and Muslims in this country.

"We all know that Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri has already resolved the compensation claim issues faced by former Perwaja employees before, and now we hope Datuk Seri can also help us former Utusan staffs," Saifol said.

He said one of the things the Prime Minister could do was to call UHY and representatives of former employees to sit down and discuss how to resolve the claim issue and then resolve the claim case in court.

"We also hope that the High Court can speed up the ongoing trial process and conduct it with the fairest consideration guided by the principle of defending oppressed workers," he added.

The result of today's meeting also decided a committee of the action team established by having representatives from all sides of the worker group and agreeing to establish an alumni club representing all former staff.

For that, a memorandum would be submitted to UHY to resolve the demands and related matters and another memorandum would be sent to the Prime Minister.

In addition, former staff would also visit the office of the Human Resources Ministry and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to request the agencies investigate if there was any management misconduct during the closing process of the company.