KUALA LUMPUR, June 12 — The National Union of Flight Attendants Malaysia (NUFAM) has yet to decide on a date for its planned “tools down” protest over the recent series of staff layoffs at Malaysia Airlines (MAS), but said tomorrow’s candlelight vigil will go on.

NUFAM executive secretary Shona Marcus was quoted in The Star as saying that the union was still “waiting for instructions” on the matter,

“The candlelight vigil is not the big protest we mentioned before. For the main protest, we are still waiting for instructions from the president. For now, no date has been set,” Marcus told the English daily.

The report said the candlelight protest will go on tomorrow night at the Subang airport.

On Tuesday, NUFAM said it was giving Malaysia Airline Berhad (MAB), formerly MAS, 48 hours to comply with its request to retract the termination of the carrier’s 6,000 employees.

The carrier’s failure to do so will result in a massive protest to take place at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, NUFAM president Ismail Nasaruddin said.

Among NUFAM’s demands include the withdrawal of all termination letters from MAS, a renegotiation of terms with union bodies, and a guarantee that workers will be fairly compensated.

Ismail added among the other demands include the airline to “re-employ all employees back and offer them Voluntary Separation Scheme instead of termination”.

He also called on MAS to publish a list of the employees rehired after the termination exercise.

MAS had on June 1 sent termination letters to the entire 20,000 MAS workforce where only two-thirds will be offered new jobs at the new entity, MAB.

The new airline, a smaller entity, will only be able to accommodate about 14,000 employees.

The national carrier was delisted in August after sovereign wealth fund Khazanah offered to buy out minority shareholders for a total of RM1.38 billion to restructure MAS.