Fifty-six former workers of a Chinese daily lodged a police report today against the National Union of Newspaper Workers (NUNW) for taking without their consent, part of the unemployment compensation they received for wrongful dismissal.

Calling themselves the NUNW former members welfare committee, the group lodged the report with the Petaling Jaya district police headquarters today.

They urged the police to investigate why the union took 25 percent of the total payout, which their lawyer said was RM1.15 million, owed to them by their former employer.

The amount deducted, amounting to RM315,145, was purportedly for service charge and lawyer's fees.

"We hope the police will investigate this as the union has been trying to hide the details of our compensation since the beginning," the committee's treasurer Thoo Ka Chong told malaysiakini when contacted.

"We have informed the union of our action but they seem to be ignoring us," he added.

The group also stated in the police report that they had been told by a union executive that the union will pay for the lawyer's exclusive disbursement of RM10,000. Yet this amount was later taken out from their unemployment compensation.

Around 10 of the ex-workers, accompanied by DAP publicity secretary Ronnie Liu, were present at the police headquarters.

Huge service charge

The 56 had worked at Sin Chew Jit Poh recently renamed Sin Chew Daily before they were sacked by the new management which took over in 1988 after the one-year suspension of the daily during Operasi Lalang.

The union then brought up their case to the Industrial Court the same year.

Fourteen years on, the workers won their case and the publishing company was ordered to compensate them in accordance with their collective agreement.

However, they only managed to get a total of RM834,855, roughly 75 percent of what they should have gotten.

At a press conference last week, the group urged the union to be transparent and accountable to its members.

They also voiced their dissatisfaction with the union for imposing such a huge service charge and insisted that the union's obligation is to protect the rights and welfare of members.

Some of those affected had been members of the union for more than 20 years and had paid their subscription fees annually.

When contacted, NUNW refused to comment.