GRTU calls on GWU to give up one of its MCESD seats to FOR.U.M.

This revelation has been made by GRTU Director-General Vince Farrugia during this week’s issue of the GRTU newsletter GRTU newsSTRING, which was published on Friday night.

Farrugia also revealed that this position was actually expressed by GRTU President Paul Abela during the MCESD meeting which discussed FOR.U.M’s request to join the MCESD was discussed by the Council. “John Bencini was an active member of MCESD as long as he was an officer of CMTU. When he resigned and his union left CMTU, he joined the newly-formed combination of trade unions called FOR.U.M,” Farrugia said. These trade unions were “most of them break-aways from CMTU,” he claimed.

“Technically, the trade union movement has produced another offspring: it is up to the family of trade unions to offer FOR.U.M. one of their seats, if they accept jointly that the family has become bigger.” Farrugia insisted. UHM and CMTU had no seats to offer as they had only a single representative. “GWU has a double representation and they are the major promoters of FOR.U.M,” the GRTU Director-General insisted. So the solution, according to the GRTU, was “obvious: GWU offers one of their two seats to their adopted partner”.

However, according to Farrugia, the MCESD “cannot every time there is a offshoot from one organisation represented offer a new seat to the new separatist group”. The story would then be unending. “Imagine what would happen if tomorrow MHRA, GRTU and then CMTU break up; we would have to create a new seat every time since we took a similar decision when Bencini’s Union broke up from CMTU”, Farrugia concluded.

On Friday, during a press conference, FOR.U.M President John Bencini made another suggestion – taking a seat from the MCCEI, which retained two seats following the merger with the FORUM.