editorial


Tunnel vision and the UHM

The unions in this country have good and bad leaders. Strong leaders tell their members what is required of them and what needs to be done and not the other way round.

In the last week, the demands presented by the unions confirm that the people who represent the workers are out of touch.

They are also oblivious to the global picture and the costings of their demands.

Cleaners are being offered wages equivalent to qualified graduate teachers and clerks and administration staff a wage packet that works out at more than a lecturer at University. The government ministers are right in arguing that we have to look at the global picture and they are also right in getting involved in the negotiations.

Mr Grillo, one of the UHM chieftains, does not agree with this approach, and argues that the people who run these corporations should do the negotiating themselves.

This may be advantageous to the union, but to the public in general who continue to subsidise many of the salaries through their taxes, it is not.

Mr Grillo has taken it upon himself to perform a character assassination on the chief government negotiator in these talks, a certain Mr Michael Debono. He was supported by (a matter of coincidence of course!) the Kullhadd.

Mr Grillo, an assistant general secretary, thinks he has a better chance of twisting the arms of senior managers than a senior government rep.

Which may be the case, considering the negotiating skills of so many of our managers.

What we see today is the apparent disregard for the holistic picture by the likes of Mr Grillo.

With none of the Latin humour of his namesake Beppe Grillo, Mr Grillo gives the impression that the employees at the various entities are suffering from gross salary injustices.

If a corporation is intrinsically losing money or, better still, dependent on subventions, then we cannot understand how a union, any union for that matter, can ask for such ludicrous increases.

There is another angle to this story; if these corporations are to be privatised then the worst possible message to pass on is to raise salaries and tag them to an automatic and systematic incremental trigger.

Obviously, both the UHM and other unions are aware of these implications, but they remain unwilling to look beyond the main interests of their members.

On this topic, the general public and the media are with the government. Do not give in, is our message.

The University lecturers
If there is one sector that requires serious attention it is that of the University lecturers.

Let us declare, from the outset, that the request for a 100 per cent increase is exaggerated and way out. One hopes that the university representatives become more realistic in their demands.

But yes, there are lecturers who depend wholly on their university commitments for their income – for far too many that income is well below the norm.

We have to look at University as the cradle of our academia. We should value the work carried out by the majority of the university lecturers who have chosen to dedicate their lives to such a career.

But on the down side the University authorities must tackle the problem of those full time and part time lecturers that contribute little or nothing to furthering the climate at University.
There are some (note the emphasis) who are careless, not dedicated and unfocused.

These must go!