Current pension model immoral and unjust with non-EU workers, Church Commission says

The Church’s Justice and Peace Commission expressed said that the current pension model is socially unjust and morally unacceptable towards non-EU workers.

In a statement, the Commission expressed its concerns regarding the injustice suffered by non-EU persons working in Malta who do not receive a pension despite paying National Insurance contributions. 

It stated that the current pension system relies on the assumption that non-EU workers will stay in Malta for a few years, pay social insurance contributions, and leave before receiving a pension.

“The Commission believes that the kind of society implied by this model is socially unjust and morally unacceptable,” it said.

It added that without any realistic possibility of making Malta their home, non-EU workers do not benefit totally from the fiscal social contract in which people pay tax and, in turn, receive public goods and services, including a pension.

“Specifically, in the absence of bilateral or EU-wide agreements with their countries of origin, these workers, once they return to their country of origin, can never expect any pension benefit in return for the National Insurance contributions they would have paid over the years.”

The Commission argued that despite these workers’ efforts and financial contribution towards the common good and the social and economic development of the country, they are often treated as a subservient underclass who never really belong.

It quoted figures recently tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Clyde Caruana that showed that National Insurance contributions by foreign workers increased by 570% between 2012 and 2021, reaching over €1 billion in total.

Over the same time-period, these workers also paid over €1.3 billion in income tax with the yearly total increasing from nearly €48 million in 2012 to €250 million in 2021. 

“The economic “success” of our country and the sustainability of our social benefits should never be obtained at the expense of workers, whoever they are and wherever they come from,” the Commission said.

It emphasised that the more than 40,000 non-EU citizens currently working in Malta, 77% of whom were earning under €20,000 a year in 2021, deserve to be treated with respect and dignity and not forced to work in an exploitative labour marked under conditions often akin to modern-day slavery.

“As a country, we need to question our definition of economic success.”

It referred to Pope Francis’ words from last year, where he urged business leaders to measure success according to “the number of people who move out of extreme poverty” instead of “profits, expansion, and short-term and shortest-term results”.

The Pope also exhorted members of the Italian Association of Private Construction Contractors to always remember that “people are the real wealth: without them, there is no working community, no enterprise, no economy.”

“On workers’ day, the Commission, therefore, calls for a new social contract in which the rights and dignity of all workers – including non-EU workers – are fully promoted and respected, within an economic framework that restores and builds rather than exploits and destroys.”