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Manwel Micallef lost the GWU leadership thanks to the helping hand of the Nationalist Party, so why do they prefer to work with Zarb, JAMES DEBONO asks.
The gut reaction of the typical General Workers Union delegate on hearing PN secretary-general Joe Saliba on Bondiplus on the eve of last Wednesday’s GWU leadership contest must have been “let’s vote Tony so as not to please the Nationalists.”
It looked like Saliba had launched a strategic bait for union delegates: his comments favouring a union led by moderates, appeared to have played well on the emotions of the delegates. For the Nationalists, nothing is better than Tony Zarb’s own brand of union militancy to rally the middle-class to their side.
The contest between roly-poly union leader Zarb, and his second-in-command Manwel Micallef, escalated to a battle between ‘militants’ and ‘moderates’, in a way falsely reflecting a Labour-Nationalist contest within the left-wing union.
It was Zarb to portray his re-election bid into a campaign against an invisible Nationalist conspiracy: “The Nationalists and their allies have no right to dictate the GWU on which path it should be choosing and they have no right to dictate who should be leading the GWU,” he told MaltaToday in an interview prior to the contest.
Saliba’s comments on Bondiplus, a subtle attack on Zarb and his favouring of a more moderate leadership, must have confirmed Manwel Micallef’s greatest fears: “When Nationalists present me in a positive light, delegates think I am in league with the government. PN strategists are aware of this. Their ulterior motive could be that of ensuring that I am not elected.”
Saliba remains coy about his comments on Bondiplus, which undoubtedly served to harden Labourite delegates against Micallef. He claims his comments were ‘in the national interest’:
“The country as a whole stands to benefit if the GWU is led by open-minded people willing to sit around a table, rather than by militants. I augur that the newly elected GWU leaders choose this path.”
Events turned out to disprove Micallef’s faith in his delegates’ ability to see through such a strategy – he had already been concerned the PN would try to neutralise him by presenting him as the moderate lackey confronting the militant Zarb.
“As for the ‘national interest’, no one in Malta bothers with that,” industrial relations expert Godfrey Baldacchino says. Strategically, the PN is better off and more comfortable with a GWU leader who has been styled “as militant and a relic from the past.”
“As far as the government is concerned, it’s probably a case of better the devil you know than the devil you don’t,” Baldacchino says about Zarb being the Nationalist government’s workerist bête noire.
Because for all Zarb’s claims to militancy, Baldacchino notes that the number of GWU industrial disputes with Zarb at the helm has been “significantly low”.
Indeed, Arthur Muscat, the president of the Malta Employers Association, says the association had had workable relations with both Zarb and his new deputy, Gejtu Mercieca. “The Zarb-Mercieca tandem sums up years of industrial relations experience and I am convinced MEA and GWU will continue to positively interact on the vital issues facing employers and employees.”
Muscat actually contends Zarb has consistently shown the GWU knows the private sector has to abide with strict economic laws and has “little space to manoeuvre within the narrow tunnel of competitiveness, viability and globalisation.”
It is the government, Muscat says, and not the private sector, which should fear the re-elected ‘militants’.
Having dealt the union’s moderates a mortal blow, Godfrey Baldacchino draws the conclusion that GWU delegates don’t want someone who is seen as a more moderate leader: “the institution did not split ranks and rather rallied behind its current boss.”
Micallef’s camp secured the support of a consistent 25 per cent of voters, still too few to have ever constituted a leadership threat. For Arthur Muscat, the “so-called moderation faction” has been practically removed from the scene: “what is significant is the drastic manner how the moderate faction has been dealt with, and practically made to disappear.”
Even with Micallef out of the GWU, having also lost the contest for deputy secretary-general for international affairs, his supporters in the union leadership have been seriously weakened: “purges of some sort are not to be excluded.”
In fact, the ‘militants’ went even as far as to distribute leaflets during the congress, identifying Josephine Attard Sultana, Karmenu Vella and Emmanuel Zammit as the next targets of their hit list. An indication of things to come?
“How valid and sustainable this choice of direction is in 2005 and beyond, may be subject to debate,” Muscat warns, who believes the GWU is more than happy with itself, and convinced of the route is has taken.
jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt
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