‘Love’ to blame for Dockyard difficulties

There is a palpable sense of history as one drives down the hill from Corradino towards the main gate of the former Royal Malta (now Palumbo) Shipyards. Everything that meets the eye – from the ‘First and Last Pub’ just outside the gate, to the scores of blood-red graffiti urging us all to ‘VOTE LORRY No.1’, to the dozen or so tower cranes dwarfing the entire city of Senglea in the background – seems to denote a sense of pride, monumentality and a fierce, almost dogged resistance to change.

All things considered, it is an unlikely setting for a love story. And yet according to its new proprietor Antonio Palumbo, the cause of all polemics currently surrounding his acquisition of the shipyards can be boiled down to “the intense feelings of attachment and affection” that the place has woven around itself in previous decades.

“I personally think it is love,” he tells me as we sit down for a chat (and an espresso) in his office at what was once the Admiralty building at the heart of the shipyards. “The love this industry has produced in former years, and that now causes certain people to make certain superfluous comments…”

If that is the case, it comes across rather differently in the media: where stories about industrial unrest, disagreements over employee unionisation and complaints about work practices are now the order of the day. I ask Palumbo if the ‘certain people’ he had in mind include Tony Zarb, the secretary-general of the General Workers’ Union, whose recent remarks on worker representation led to a belligerent spat between the two…

But Palumbo refuses to go into such specifics.

“I am not a politician. I am an entrepreneur,” he says with a shrug.

Diffident of the media, and mindful of being a foreigner caught up in a complex local political situation, he is more keen on drawing attention to the successes associated with his new acquisition, rather than the polemics.

“In 14 months we have managed to attract 200 ships to Malta, despite fierce competition and a global economic crisis which has shown no sign of abating, either now or in the immediate future. And yet, right now there are ships here from Russia, Turkey, Chile, Italy, Germany… all this translates into economic benefits that spill out from the shipyards to other areas of the economy.”

Perhaps more significantly in view of the ongoing controversy regarding worker representation, he also insists that rapport between management and staff has never been better.

“The feeling of enthusiasm here is growing every day,” he asserts, inviting me to look over his own office with a broad sweep of his arm. “This place was previously out of bounds to all but senior management. Today we have an open door policy: anyone can come up here, at any time, to share their concerns, to talk about their problems…”

Despite his energetic defence of the shipyards, Palumbo cannot conceal a certain frustration way this same situation is so often portrayed: bad press, union issues, neighbourhood complaints about noise and air pollution… all the inconveniences he loosely groups together as “resistances of a local nature.”

“I don’t know if this economy we are creating here is appreciated,” he admits. “What is certain, however, is that despite a mounting global economic crisis we have successfully stopped a steady haemorrhage of losses – losses which have run into a billion euros, all borne by the Maltese, which had become the order of the day at this dockyard…”

He also expresses perplexity at some of the issues that have been raised since the shipyards went back to work in the summer of 2010. For instance, sandblasting: the controversial practice which has proved so irritating to residential neighbourhoods, resulting in enforcement action by MEPA.

Palumbo acknowledges that it is an issue of concern, but questions why it has suddenly become a cause for complaint only now. “I can’t understand how something that had been happening for 40 years before Palumbo came here, suddenly became a problem only afterwards. I am told that in March 2010, sandblasting was carried out 24 hours a day for a whole month, and no one ever complained…”

Nonetheless few will deny that the practice is a major headache to neighbours. How essential is it to the industry? Or to put it another way: can a shipyard operate successfully without sandblasting?

 “The problem concerns competition. Ultimately it is the ship owners who decide what they want, and then choose the shipyard depending on their needs. The type of work required is outside our direct control: if an owner wants his ship sandblasted, he will take it to a dockyard that provides sandblasting service...”

In today’s world, that includes every shipyard with which Malta is in direct competition. Palumbo insists that this is the dynamic which lies at the heart of the matter.

“Nonetheless we are working to minimise the inconvenience, and bring local work practices up to our international standards. We are hopeful that some way will be found to create the basis for conviviality…”

Closing our brief encounter I ask him whether he was aware, when taking over the shipyards last year, that he had also bought his way into a national controversy in its own right. Had anyone warned him about the political baggage that inevitably comes with this territory in Malta?

He smiles wryly.

“No, I didn’t know anything about this aspect. I am getting to know about it now. This place has a very particular history, and it needs to be understood. What I see here is will-power: a desire to maintain the old, as well as a certain reluctance to acknowledge the new.

“But we need to understand whether these polemics are instrumental to the shipyards themselves: if they are aimed at something specific, something alien to the industry… or if they are merely polemics prompted by the benign, well-meaning intention of people who genuinely love the shipyards… and who have their best interests at heart. Only time will tell…”