The ITF-affiliated National Union of Flight Attendants of Malaysia (NUFAM) represents cabin crew at Malaysia Airlines. The company has long maintained that crew supervisors count as management rather than staff and therefore are ineligible for union representation.
The federal court’s decision ends a lengthy process during which the airline has attempted to challenge supervisors’ labour rights at multiple levels of the judiciary. Several groups, including the Malaysian Trades Union Congress, have called on the airline to immediately recognise NUFAM as the legitimate representative of supervisors for collective bargaining purposes.
The ITF airports organising programme coordinator said: “In the middle of the Covid-19 crisis, the protection of union membership and collective bargaining is more important for workers than ever.”
