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Following the death of Pope John Paul II, praise for the man has been tempered by those who condemn what they term as his “outdated, ultra-conservative” outlook on abortion. His critics are missing the point. The pope was not being an old fogey stick-in-the-mud when he refused to sanction abortion at any stage. He was bound by Church teachings to observe the sanctity and potential of life from conception. This stand might seem dogmatic, but it is the only way to avoid the slippery slope argument where man has to decide when there’s life or not. Or which life is worthy of protection or not. In Britain, women can abort up to the twenty-fourth week of pregnancy. Foetuses younger than that were not considered to be viable if born. That argument has been put paid to as recent medical evidence has shown that children born much earlier can survive.
Actually many people probably don’t mind abortion because they don’t see that pulsating collection of foetal cells as a human being. For them, if it looks like a tadpole, it can be flushed away like one. The Economist reports that there has been a slight change in this attitude when photography has revealed foetuses that are younger than 24 weeks doing things which babies do – they suck their thumb, yawn and walk in the womb. So what to do? Figure out when a foetus is able to suck its thumb and looks like a miniature Kewpie doll, and allow abortion before that? What difference do a few hours make? How can we ever decide at what point to draw the line and allow abortion of the rest? We can’t quibble about this. If killing your child was wrong on day 140, it was equally wrong from the start of pregnancy. Pope John Paul II was right about this.
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I’m all for trade unions. I think they’re a good thing. When they’re doing what they should do well, there’s nothing like them. But sometimes they’re just terribly embarrassing and do the kind of things that would make your batty uncle’s farting in front of all your friends seem eccentric but tolerable in comparison. Like the GWU’s grandstanding recently. It started off with the GWU and Enemalta management disagreeing about manning levels at Enemalta’s aviation fuel section. According to the 1996 collective agreement and the GWU, there has to be a full complement of 14 workers at any one time, irrespective of the demand for fuel. Enemalta management is insisting that manning levels should be higher when the demand is greater. Either that, or it’s another way of going about downsizing the operation. In any case, the GWU jumped the gun somewhat and issued a directive telling workers not to fill in papers with the amount of aviation fuel pumped into an aircraft. Enemalta deemed this to be a safety threat and responded by closing down its aircraft refuelling service at the airport.
Not a union to take this lying down, the GWU then directed Enemalta’s employees not to operate the valves used to pump fuel into the distribution trucks which carry fuel to the petrol stations. The end result was another queuing experience where car drivers fumed in long tailbacks outside petrol stations, with a sense of deja-vu (gas cylinders anyone?). That’s when Austin Gatt donned his Margaret Thatcher outfit minus the blue handbag, and got Enemalta to suspend those workers who had gone on strike. And then all union hell broke loose as both secretary-general Tony Zarb and president Salvu Sammut rattled their sabres ominously and vowed to fight to the death for the right to order sympathy strikes. Mr Sammut did a particularly fine line in Mussolini-in-the-balcony oratory. He thundered that the union “will occupy the streets and will govern from the streets. We have a Mediterranean temperament. It is easy for us to flare up.” You had to wince at the awful picture he drew up. The image of these swarthy, hot-blooded Latin men ruling from the village squares is more hilarious than dramatic. For the grand finale, Sammut compared the GWU to an egg, saying “The more it is heated, the more hardened and united it becomes”. Some time later, the union and the government and Enemalta kissed and made up and promised they’d abide by any decision of the Industrial Tribunal.
Rather than reinforcing its image as a good egg, the GWU reminded us how awfully annoying it can be at times. If the union leadership thinks that by flexing muscle it is drawing people to its cause, it had better think again. Practically everybody considers trade unions to be indispensable for the protection of employees’ rights and fair working conditions, and the GWU does its bit to this end. It provides free legal advice for its members and represents them in dealings with their bosses. All this is to the good and to its credit.
However the GWU’s virtues are forgotten in an instant, when it starts being petty and ordering strikes right, left and centre. We can’t understand why the union can aggressively uphold the right to strike as upheld by the collective agreement, and then dismiss the clause in the same agreement which says that essential public services are to be maintained at all times. By blocking essential services and disrupting normal business and trading activity, the union is causing inconvenience to the general public and not attracting any sympathies. And the way the union elevates everything to a point of principle, just aggravates matters even further. The “it’s a matter of principle” argument can be used to justify any course of action. Judge Anton Depasquale did not go in to work (and still got paid) for some eight years on such a matter of principle. When I post a letter, I want it to be in the postman’s mailbag as soon as possible. I don’t see why the GWU’s rehashing some old feud with the Maltapost management “on a matter of principle”, means that my letters don’t get there for aeons. My sense of social solidarity fails me when the streets are clogged with petrol-thirsty drivers fuelling up because the GWU has threatened further industrial action just because a proposal has been made.
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Sympathy strikes are the worst of all. As the name implies, workers will go out on strike to support their colleagues in another branch or totally different place of employment. The rationale behind this is to have smaller groups of workers finding support by having the full force of a union behind it. If five cleaners at the airport go on strike, it might not make much difference, but if all the luggage handlers and security officers do, you’ll never be able to pick up your luggage from the carousel trolley (you still have to wait a pretty long time anyway, strike or no strike). The downside of sympathy strikes is that they often involve totally unrelated businesses and bring the whole country to a standstill. Besides doing absolutely nothing for our reputation as a centre for competitiveness or efficiency. Like Italy, we get a reputation for industrial unrest and that’s as Mediterranean as it gets. With our luck we get the wildcat strikes, the heat and the hassle and the only passionate men in our streets are Tony Zarb and Salvu Sammut, and not handsome Italians with crumpled linen suits, shouting insincere “ciao bellas” to brighten up our day.
cl.bon@global.net.mt
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