Guan Eng criticises Mueller's decision to cut 6,000 jobs

GEORGE TOWN: Penang chief minister Lim Guan Eng (pix) slams outgoing Malaysian Airlines Bhd (MAS) chief executive officer (CEO) Christoph Mueller's move to adopt collective punishment by cutting 6,000 jobs because some employees were "doing nothing".
Commenting on Mueller's statement that was reported yesterday, Lim said cutting 6,000 jobs was unfair to the employees who are hardworking.
"Instead of implementing collective punishment, he should only sack those who were doing nothing.
"It is unfair to those hardworking staff," he said.
Lim added that he would ask the state secretary to take action against employees who were doing nothing, if he noticed those state government employees sleeping while on the job.
Yesterday, it was reported that Mueller said he had to cut 6,000 jobs because many of the 20,000 employees were "doing nothing".
He said he was not impressed with the state that MAS was in when he first took over the carrier.
"Despite all the announcements by the government, a turnaround wasn't initiated by the time I became CEO," he told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle on its web portal.
He also said that many of the 20,000 employees who worked for the airline "had nothing to do" and that he noticed people sleeping when he walked through the hangars.
"That's why I had to radically cut 6,000 jobs," he said.