|
Karl Schembri
In the stifling heat of a typical sleepy summer afternoon, the patience of the proletariat in front of the threats to “behead” comrade workers employed in government companies is inevitably tested.
No wonder that their leader, Tony Zarb, gets a standing ovation when they are supposedly voting by show of hands to the “strategy” of ordering industrial action “in all places of work” unless the Prime Minister meets the union before 10 August.
What is at stake, according to Zarb, is the future of “all government employees” who are about to fall victims of the government’s “guillotine policy”.
“I’m ready to receive any blow for as long as I keep defending you,” Zarb told his executive committee members last Thursday to a roaring applause.
He attributed the guillotine phrase to the government, saying that at a meeting on 28 June with Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and “the other prime minister… Austin Gatt” the union was told that when government decides to close down one of its companies “the guillotine would be lowered” and workers would not be given alternative jobs.
As the latest example of the “guillotine policy”, Zarb referred to Interprint – the government’s bankrupt printing press employing 35 workers who together will receive Lm500,000 in termination benefits, well above the minimum set by the law whenever a company is liquidated.
“Let’s not just look at Interprint,” he said. “Sea Malta workers need to stay on their guard. Maltacom workers need to stay on their guard. All government workers whose companies are going to be restructured should be worried because the guillotine could drop onto their neck.”
Only a few minutes after the meeting, government’s propaganda masters calling newsrooms by telephone were making fun of Zarb by pointing out, for the first time, that all Sea Malta workers had their jobs guaranteed, effectively ridiculing his apocalyptic claim that all workers faced imminent beheading.
Away from the heat and the maddening cries of Zarb’s followers, a picture of two classes of workers emerges.
On the one hand, there is the heavily unionised class of workers employed with the government, so far protected from market forces and with nicely cushioned termination deals.
On the other, there is the silent class of the private sector employees, fully exposed to the brunt of the free market economy, with its ups and downs and hire-and-fire policies that could be much more easily dubbed as guillotine-style than any government measure contemplated ever.
The numbers speak for themselves: GWU, Malta’s largest union, lost almost 3,000 members since 2001. Will this summer campaign against the metaphorical government guillotine attract more members to this union? Will the union’s battlecry for alternative government employment ring a bell with private sector workers who would only dream of getting hefty termination benefits when their employers go bankrupt?
Already, most of the small and medium sized business workers feel that unions are ineffective when they have face-to-face relations with their employers. Nationwide strikes for 35 government printing press workers receiving generous payouts can hardly elicit any sense of solidarity in the face of the unequal treatment.
But Zarb’s guillotine is far from Castille. It is within his own union headquarters and will be ready for the beheading in two months’ time. On 5 October, the union will have its council election, and Zarb’s own position as secretary general will be up for vote.
Already, the union’s “militant” factions are pushing Zarb to take central control of all kind of negotiations facing the GWU. This will help him consolidate his position inside the union. But ironically, his ‘militant’ campaign may well put his union on the scaffold if he fails to convince workers.
karl@newsworksltd.com
|
