KUALA LUMPUR: Four unions affiliated with the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) have failed to stop a special delegates conference, which will elect top office-bearers tomorrow.
The High Court yesterday evening refused to grant an interim injunction requested by the National Union of Transport and Allied Industries Workers, Metal Industry Employees Union, National Union of Telecommunication Employees, and Paper and Paper Product Manufacturing Employees Union.
Judge Mariana Yahya, however, did not give grounds for her ruling.
Lawyer Srividhya Ganapathy, who represented the unions, said her clients were exploring all options available in view of the failure to obtain the injunction pending the disposal of their action.
“The calling of the special delegates conference is not in compliance with MTUC’s constitution,” she told FMT today.
Srividhya, who was assisted by S Muhendaran, said the four unions would pursue their main action filed last week.
She said Sept 29 had been fixed for case management.
In their originating summons, the plaintiffs had named the Registrar of Societies (RoS) and 18 MTUC working committee members, who run the day-to-day affairs of the union, as defendants.
The plaintiffs want RoS to intervene and supervise the election and ensure the working committee acted in accordance with the constitution.
The suit was filed after MTUC secretary-general J Solomon issued a circular on Aug 19 to 77 general council members, asking them how many agreed to the holding of the conference.
About 60 of them agreed to the conference to be held tomorrow but 10 working committee members and 30 unions wrote to MTUC and RoS to object to the holding of the meeting.
Subsequently, RoS ordered MTUC to hold a general council meeting first in accordance with its constitution before the conference is held.
MTUC is governed by the general council, which makes major decisions, and a meeting must be held at least once in two months.
The last meeting was held in February and another was scheduled in March followed by the conference, but was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.