The new management of Sun Media Corporation, publisher of The Sun daily, today expressed its wish to settle all outstanding issues before it is officially acquired by fledgling multimedia company Nexnews Bhd.

The Sun s newly-appointed managing director Philip Karuppiah said this when contacted by malaysiakini .

Earlier this morning, he and the dailys acting human resource manager N Shanmugaratinam attended a conciliatory meeting with the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) at the Industrial Relations Department in Putrajaya.

NUJ was represented by its president Norila Mohd Daud, general secretary Hong Boon How, The Sun s NUJ branch chairperson K Kannan, vice-chairperson L Jairajoo, and secretary P Vijian.

It was a fruitful discussion ... the new management is committed to resolving all outstanding issues, said Karuppiah.

NUJ general secretary Hong said the union welcomed the new managements positive attitude towards a possible quick and amicable settlement of all outstanding issues.

The union hopes to foster better understanding and co-operation with the new management, unlike our previous experiences with the old management, he said in a statement.

Outstanding issues

He explained that the outstanding issues include the non-payment of a three-month contractual bonus, and the sacking of some 40 employees last month without paying them full retrenchment benefits as yet.

The other issues are the allegation of union busting as six out of 10 union branch leaders of The Sun were retrenched, and the suspension of two journalists who wrote a controversial story last December.

The story reported that police had uncovered a plot to assassinate the countrys two top leaders and this had irked Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad when it was picked up by the foreign press.

The article led to the resignation of the dailys editor-in-chief and editor, the suspension of several senior editorial staff, and the appointment of Frankie Tay Thiam Siew as executive director and lawyer VK Lingam as deputy chairperson of the daily.

The Sun s NUJ branch chief Kannan told malaysiakini today that the new management had asked the union to draft a proposed settlement to resolve issues related to retrenchment amicably.

We are trying to get everything done before March 15, he said.

More retrenchments?

Last month, business tycoon Vincent Tan who owns The Sun acquired a 26.15 percent stake in Nexnews from Tong Kooi Ong, owner of business weekly The Edge .

Tongs stake in Nexnews was reduced to 26.17 percent following the deal.

Subsequently, Nexnews signed memorandum of understanding (MoU) to buy the entire stake of Sun Media Corporation and a 70 percent stake in The Edge Communications Sdn Bhd, publisher of The Edge .

Meanwhile, sources said the The Sun s new management has announced large-scale retrenchment by end of March during a meeting last Friday between Karuppiah and several high-ranking staff.

It was also announced that Zainon Ahmad, former editorial consultant for the New Straits Times Press (NSTP) group, will be appointed as the new editor-in-chief for The Sun effective March 1.

Zainon was sacked along with NSTP editorial advisors Samad Ismail and Mazlan Nordin last September shortly after Abdullah Ahmad was appointed as group chief editor.