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Karl Schembri
Dark ominous clouds awaited the troubled leader of the General Workers’ Union upon his return from a cruise in the Norwegian fjords via a flight from Amsterdam yesterday, only that he never appeared.
Indeed, a cruise must be better than the mass resignations facing him after one of the most disastrous weeks for the union.
Journalists waited in vain at the airport’s arrivals lounge to get the secretary general’s first reactions since the resignations of section secretaries Emmanuel Zammit and Karmenu Vella and dozens of their colleagues, in what is being called by the union’s own media officer as “the last act in the plan against the GWU”, inadvertently betraying what the administration actually hoped for – the elimination of the three secretaries singled out in the anonymous leaflets since last October’s administrative elections for “forming part of Emmanuel Micallef’s clique”.
“You can stay waiting,” Zarb said when contacted later on his mobile. “Coincidentally you are the third journalist to ask me when I’m returning from abroad. Such are the coincidences. Leave us alone.”
His reaction to the mass resignations was not much different to that given by his deputy Gejtu Mercieca upon the resignation of Emmanuel Zammit last Tuesday who said it was “business as usual” at the union. According to Zarb, “the union will keep moving on and strengthening in the process”.
That may be too early to say, as port workers are working to set up their union with a little help from the GWU’s enfant terrible, George Abela, and the GWU’s credibility plunges to historical depths.
Yesterday’s front page on l-orizzont, the day after Vella’s resignation, incredibly carried a headline in bold font stating: “Success for the GWU”, leading one to believe Vella’s departure was being heralded as a positive conclusion to months of bitter infighting at the Workers’ Memorial Building. The story however was about a draft agreement the union had reached with ST Microelectronics that would save Maltese employees from massive Europe-wide redundancy plans.
Speaking shortly after handing his resignation Friday, Vella said he could not work any longer within the union he had been militating in for the last 29 years. “I have had enough,” Vella told MaltaToday, who for months had been the target of all sorts of insults from the union’s leadership and on its newspaper even though he was never mentioned by name.
“This has happened before – whoever disagrees with the union’s line or contests for a post is declared a Nationalist,” Vella said. “For me it was a question of principle, because I have principles and they do not exist only in physics” – an unmistakable reply to GWU President Salv Sammut who told MaltaToday two weeks ago that “principles exist only in physics”.
“On the day they sacked Josephine Attard Sultana, I decided I couldn’t stay there any longer,” Vella added. “I tried in vain to get them to withdraw their motion for her dismissal; I also appealed so that we all take a one week break, a cooling period, so that everyone could evaluate things and decide afterwards. But it was all decided.”
Vella, who is now unemployed, was followed in his exit by all of his colleagues on the union’s national council, 22 delegates, shop stewards in all banks and by the president and secretary of the managers’ committee at the Malta Shipyards, among others.
“I’m open to any offer or suggestion that may come up, now that I’m jobless,” Vella said.
Zammit on the other hand has planned his exit strategy to coincide with the imminent launching of a new union for port workers with George Abela, prompting the GWU leadership to vilify him for allegedly encouraging union members to leave while he was still an official.
Just three weeks ago after she was dramatically sacked, Josephine Attard Sultana said in an interview with MaltaToday about Vella and Zammit: “They were the only section secretaries to stand by me in the ordeal. There was no support from the other sections. … In the open it was only Karmenu and Emmanuel’s sections that remained close to me till the end, till I left the union building for the last time. I’m concerned they might go through what I’ve been through. It’s clear now. Definitely the sections of Karmenu Vella and Emmanuel are under the spotlight, we were like under a hawk’s gaze. I ended in a situation where I would be observed if I cross over to Emmanuel’s section, the same if I go to Karmenu, as if talking to your colleagues is a bad thing, in their obsession that just because you speak to your colleagues you must be plotting and inciting… I can’t say what will happen, but when you see hostility there is in the air, things are not very promising.”
With the three of them out of the union, Zarb and Mercieca must now have free rein to soldier on with their “militant” unionism of sorts, although Mercieca seems to be somehow bowing to mounting pressure as the heat intensifies. Yesterday he told The Times he was ready to seek a vote of confidence at the national congress.
On Thursday evening Zarb will meanwhile meet the shop stewards and delegates that remain from the maritime and aviation secretary following Emmanuel Zammit’s departure.
kschembri@mediatoday.com.mt
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