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Karl Schembri
Plans are in the offing to dismantle the Professional and Services Section in the General Workers’ Union headed by Karmenu Vella and merge its members with another section in a bid to get rid of the moderate union leader.
Sources close to the union say Vella is under attack and his section is clearly up for a shake-up in what would be perhaps the simplest way of getting rid of him.
For long Vella has been targeted in anonymous leaflets as one of “Emanuel Micallef’s clique” and a “Nationalist” together with Josephine Attard Sultana – just sacked by the union last week – and ports section secretary Emanuel Zammit.
Contacted Friday, GWU President Salv Sammut would not confirm or deny reports about the imminent dismantling of Vella’s section which sources say is made of not much more than a thousand members.
“The Maltese are always spreading rumours,” he insisted.
But last Wednesday, Sammut wrote menacingly on l-orizzont about “a poisonous viper posing as a lamb” within the union whose time had come to leave in what is clearly interpreted as a direct attack on Vella, although he stopped short of naming him.
“At the end, he will get burnt once and for all and that will be the last act of his drama,” Sammut wrote. Vella happens to be an actor. “Upon his burning we’ll have fresh air and the sky will clear up. The GWU will be able to continue its work. The union cannot show mercy with who wants to destroy it completely with an agenda dictated by others.”
When contacted Sammut still declined to name the person whom he attacked in his column but insisted the official was “no longer needed” in the union.
“Whoever I’m referring to knows who he is,” he told MaltaToday. “I’m like a transmitter, I send a message and it’s up to others to pick it up. I wrote my article so that everyone would know what’s happening in here.”
Asked why he insisted on making allegations about a union official without naming him, Sammut said he did not want “to expose him like that”, nor did he say in what way the official was “playing with fire”.
“I’m not mentioning names but yes it’s serious,” he said. “Whoever plays with fire gets burnt. We can’t go on like this, having people obstructing us internally all the time. If he keeps this attitude we don’t need him any longer.”
Last week, Attard Sultana said Vella and Zammit were the only section secretaries to stand by her in the episode that saw her ousted from the union after more than 20 years working there.
“I’m concerned they might go through what I’ve been through,” she said. “It’s clear now. Definitely the sections of Karmenu Vella and Emmanuel are under the spotlight, we were like under a hawk’s gaze.”
And in an interview today, former deputy secretary general Emanuel Micallef says he is convinced the two will be driven out of the GWU in one way or another. “Today I am convinced they will get rid of them – they will either sack them or manoeuvre things to get them to resign,” Micallef said.
Meanwhile Sammut also hinted the union might not accept George Abela any longer as the legal advisor for Zammit’s section after the GWU mounted a personal attack against its former lawyer, who in return is suing the union and its newspaper for libel.
“First of all he came out attacking us; what we did was to defend ourselves,” Sammut said, adding that accepting Abela or not in future negotiations would “depend on circumstances”.
Asked if he objected to having Abela in principle, Sammut said: “Principles exist only in physics.”
kschembri@mediatoday.com.mt
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