PN to vote in favour of weekend public holidays being added to vacation leave

Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi said the Opposition will vote in favour of amendments that will see public holidays falling on a weekend being added to the annual vacation leave entitlement.

However, he warned that people needed more money in their wallets as opposed to more holidays. He also called on government to publish impact studies on the issue.

It was a PN administration in 2005 that changed the law and stopped the practice to increase the annual leave entitlement by the number of public holidays that fell on a weekend in that particular year. The decision was part of an austerity package to trim public expenditure and increase productivity as Malta prepared to join the euro three years later.

The Labour Party made it an electoral pledge to reverse the measure and parliament is currently discussing the legal change, which was presnted by Minister within the OPM Carmelo Abela on Monday.

Speaking in parliament on Tuesday, Azzopardi lashed out at the Labour government for the precarious employment conditions faced by workers over the past few years. This was his first formal parliamentary address since being tasked to shadow the employment portfolio by Opposition leader Bernard Grech.

“The average wage for a Maltese worker today stands at around €17,500, according to the NSO. When you ready a bit more and do some research, you’ll find that a couple with two children earning less than €19,346 is at risk of poverty and social exclusion,” Azzopardi said.

He lashed out at Finance Minister Clyde Caruana for saying that the living wage is impossible to implement with so many businesses suffering.

“The living wage was promised by Edward Scicluna in 2010 when the Labour Party was still in Opposition. They had 11 years to do this, three of which we were in surplus, but now it is completely out of the question,” Azzopardi said.

He commented on the number of workers that are over-qualified for the job they carry out. “In the last 10 years the number of over-qualified workers increased  by 5%, to 12.8% of all Maltese and Gozitan workers between 20 and 64 years... You built an economy on cheap labour. From 2013 the Labour Party has created jobs that pay poverty-level wages, with less than €19,700,” he said.

Azzopardi said government should dedicate more EU funds to fighting social exclusion and poverty. Nationalist MEP David Casa had negotiated a financial package worth €90 billion to be distributed across all EU member states to help finance government projects dedicated towards work, poverty and social exclusion, he added.

Malta has around €110 million worth of such funds, apart from added funding through the REACT EU project that government can use by 2023.

“Statistics also show that 23.7% of Maltese and Gozitan citizens have a tertiary level of education, compared to the European median of 48.6%,” he pointed out.

“That is what happens when for the last seven years the Labour government has relied on the sale of passports only to grow the economy... This is a clear demonstration that the Labour government has not planned or done anything in the last seven years in order to create quality work,” Azzopardi insisted.

Government Whip Glenn Bedingfield

Speaking just after him, government Whip Glenn Bedingfield said the government's decision to "give back" public holidays that fall on a weekend signalled the difference between the PL and the PN.

"It's good to hear the Opposition saying it will vote for these amendments, although it appears to be half-heartedly with Jason Azzopardi asking us to publish studies... but this is the difference between us... at a time of austerity a PN government turned on workers and denied them public holidays leave but in the midst of a pandemic our government is reversing that position," Bedingfield said.