Utusan Malaysia and Kosmo! May Be Totally Shutdown Due To Insufficient Funds, Workers’ Salaries Are Still Unpaid

The possibility of losing one’s job is a terrifying scenario.

Utusan Melayu (Malaysia) Berhad is facing the threat of a total shutdown if they fail to sell off some assets in the coming few weeks, reported Sinar Harian.

This comes as reporting from The Star revealed all the publications under the Utusan Group, which are Utusan Malaysia, Mingguan Malaysia, Kosmo!, and Kosmo! Ahad will completely shutdown their print and online publications.

Source: utusan

The President of National Union of Journalists Peninsular Malaysia (NUJ), Mohd Taufek Razak informed the outcome from a meeting with the highest management of the Utusan Group. If the company’s assets are not sold soon, there is no other way but to totally shut down all of its operations.

“In the morning, we (NUJ) met with the Executive Chairman of Utusan Group, Datuk Abd Aziz Sheikh Fadzir at the Ministry of Human Resources. According to him, they need to shut down Utusan’s operations because they are not able to bear the costs,” Mohd Taufek said.

Source: sinar harian

“The management (Utusan Group) made the decision because they have insufficient funds to pay for workers’ current, future and overdue salaries. They have no money and they did not dispose of any current assets,” he told the press after a protest at the Utusan Malaysia compound yesterday (19th August 2019).

Mohd Taufek said that at the current moment, there are no aids provided by UMNO. He added that UMNO gained popularity by using Utusan as their medium and a tool for propaganda.

The Utusan Group have not provided any salaries to their staff since June 2019. The group has a history of paying their staff late.

Source: sinar harian

The salaries for executive staff was halted for two months. The executive staff were paid half of their salary (RM2,000) in June this year.

Some of the staff continued working there even without salaries because they still loved Utusan. There were even some staff members who had to borrow money from loan sharks just to afford a living.

Almost 100 staff members from the Utusan Group were at the protest to demand for their unpaid salary since June to August 2019.

It is hoped that the workers will get their unpaid salaries soon so that they can cover all their living costs. Hopefully, their jobs would not be jeopardised due to this incident.

Also read: Malaysia’s Oldest Newspaper Finally Quits Print Operations After 122 Years!