WATCH | Cruel employer refused to fly worker’s body home because death ‘interrupted contract’

He came to work in Malta on a 12-month contract that obliged the employer to cover travel expenses at the start and end of his contract.

But when the Indonesian worker suffered a heart attack and died shortly afterwards, his Maltese employer refused to cover the transport expenses to fly the body back to his family. The shocking reason given by the employer was that the dead man was in “breach of contract” because he did not work the full 12 months and thus there was no obligation to send him home.

This is one of several cases General Workers’ Union boss Josef Bugeja talks about in an interview with MaltaToday in which he sounds the alarm on cases of modern slavery that continue to exist despite improvements in worker protection laws.

The Indonesian man’s case, which happened some years back, was eventually resolved but Bugeja notes that many more third country nationals continue to fall victim of horrid working conditions and poor compensation.

Bugeja cites the example of food couriers who get paid the minimum wage, which gets eaten up by a number of other fees such as motorcycle and fuel costs. Shockingly, he adds, some couriers’ protective clothing is rented out by their employers, and that fee is also taken out from their wages.

Bugeja explains that many of the non-EU workers have to borrow money to pay thousands in euros in fees to come and work in Malta. This, he notes, leads the worker to become desperate for work and money, which in turn makes them less likely to refuse abusive practices.

Another case that Bugeja raises is that of a man who was promised a wage of €1,000 per month and had to work 12-hour shifts from Monday to Sunday in complete breach of employment laws.

Bugeja says his union has seen many cases of employees who were brought to Malta on the premise of a job but after a while were told the vacancy had been filled.

The employer would then offer the employee an undocumented job, “off the books”, to which the employee wouldn’t hesitate to accept in order to pay off the massive debts racked up in order to come to Malta.

Bugeja argues that despite improvements in workers’ rights over the years, new challenges have arisen in an ever-evolving labour market that requires constant vigilance.

It is these cases of abuse that underpin the GWU’s call for automatic union membership to become a legal requirement, he says. “It will help curb abuse,” Bugeja says, adding that abusive employers should be criminally charged and publicly shamed.