Take back hospitals and power station from foreign ownership, UĦM tells government

Government should take back three public hospitals given on concession and the Electrogas power station from foreign ownership, the UĦM said in its budget proposals.

Union Ħaddiema Magħqudin CEO Josef Vella said the Vitals hospitals concession was daylight robbery for which the country had nothing to show.

“Government should not wait for the law courts to declare the contract null. It should take back the three hospitals from foreign ownership,” he said on Wednesday. The same applied for the Electrogas power station that has been mired in corruption allegations, he added.

“It is incomprehensible how it had to be a Labour government that gave up vital sectors to foreign owners when it had been the government to rid the country from British military forces in 1979,” Vella said.

The proposal forms part of the union’s proposals for the upcoming budget that call for more family friendly measures at the workplace, better incomes and greater protection for low income earners.

Mandatory union membership

The UĦM wants union membership to become compulsory for workers earning the median wage or below.

“I have a hunch that whoever is proposing a blanket measure to make compulsory union membership for all is simply setting up the proposal to fail before it is even considered. We should start by introducing such a measure to protect the most vulnerable workers, those who are earning low wages,” Vella said.

The UĦM wants a study to evaluate the impact of a reduced working week, a revision of the cost of living mechanism to better reflect household expenditure and remote working measures that serve workers not employers.

It is also calling for the reintroduction of trade schools at secondary level. “There are students who arrive at Form 3 and are not interested in the academic path and we simply leave them there demotivated and frustrated. We need trade schools to give these students a chance and fill crucial gaps in the labour market that are now being occupied by imported labour,” Vella said.

The union is reiterating a proposal it made several years ago for the creation of an online portal where all work contracts can be uploaded.

“Let us make Malta the first in the world to have all employees with a written work contract that is uploaded in a system where checks can be done to eradicate abuse,” he said. 

The union is also emphasising the need for a greater effort to get Malta off the greylist on which it was put by the Financial Action Task Force last June.

Vella said investigations must be concluded, people prosecuted and cases heard without delay.

“When Panama Papers erupted, I had warned that black clouds were on the horizon. They are grey clouds that are impacting our economy and reputation abroad. Everyone involved in the cases being investigated should shoulder responsibility because at this point in time it is us the people who are shouldering the burden through increased bureaucracy and scrutiny as a result of greylisting,” Vella said.

He called for a strong diplomatic corps to address the reputational damage. “We need an academy to train diplomats and we need to stop choosing ambassadors on the basis of political affiliation,” Vella said, adding ambassadors have to be competent and able to fix the country’s reputation.