Ready to Bite the Bullet!

Be forewarned.

GLCs will likely go on a hair-cut exercise by September to trim salaries of its workers. The reason: fallout from the current global recession.

After having lived off the fat of the land for countless years, these GLCs which operated off-budget and enjoyed perks and pay better than civil servants,will finally feel some reality which has been experienced by its comrades in the more volatile private sector.

GLC personnel could not feel the pain when the foreign-based E&E companies closed the doors to local engineers and operators beginning the last quarter of 2008. These retrenched staff, especially those in the senior age-group oftentimes find it hard to find alternative employment.

MTUC vice-president Mustafa Maarof disclosed on 18 June that this message has been conveyed to the unions when the management of these companies headed by Khazanah Nasional met the workers' representatives recently.

Mustafa, who is also the executive secretary of the Malaysia Airlines System (MAS) Employees Union, told Bernama that the management also told them that "if the salary cut does not improve the companies' results, then they should expect to be subjected to either a mutual separation scheme (MSS) or voluntary separation scheme (VSS)".

Besides MAS, 90 other companies are also categorised as GLCs, among them, Sime Darby, Tenaga Nasional, Telekom Malaysia, Felda, Felcra, Pos Malaysia and Bernas.

Almost 200,000 of the workers in these companies are former public servants who opted for the new entities when their departments were corporatised or privatised in the early 80's and 90's.

Encik Mustafa fears that while the top executives who are highly paid and enjoy excellent perks like large bonuses and entertainment allowance, will be spared,the middle and lower-level staff may feel the brunt of retrenchment.

But that is the way of the world. Someone must go.....

Is the government's assurance to prevent job cuts good when the economy has gone from bad to worse because of the poor response to the economic stimulus package? No,because government has also to act responsibly. It's time to bite the bullet.

So does it looks like the days of the insulation of adverse economic effects on the iron rice bowl of civil servants and public servants are finally over? Yes or No?