Update: Ball now back in Government's court: Bencini

FOR.U.M President John Bencini told MaltaToday: “Now that MCESD has effectively thrown the ball back into the Government’s court, it would be interesting to know what the Government’s next move would be.

He also announced that the whole issue would also be debated in Parliament after the summer recess when a Member of Parliament would be presenting a private member bill.

Bencini vowed that FOR.U.M would not budge in its request to join the MCESD despite this impasse. “FOR.U.M will continue day in day out, year in year out until Government realizes that his policy of exclusivity would not get him anywhere,” Bencini insisted.

Bencini explained how MCESD was “a forum representing the Government, employers and Unions. FOR.U.M represented 11 Unions including “workers in the tourism sector, health, education, banking, environment and other important professionals and therefore should rightfully be also represented”, he added.

Asked about what effective action FORUM would take to insist on its campaign to join MCESD, Bencini told MaltaToday: “FOR.U.M will be taking all those actions according to law to safeguard the interests of its 12,000 members”.

Finally, questioned by MT whether FORUM would be informing other Unions and trade union confederations aboard with this decision, Bencini explained how FOR.U.M. FOR.U.M had already “named and shamed the Maltese Government abroad and has explained to various Unions abroad how the Maltese Government is orchestrating the whole matter”.

Although MaltaToday had already reported that there had been disagreement between the social partners about FOR.U.M’s request to join MCESD, it was only last Wednesday that they the MCESD officially informed FOR.U.M about this disagreement.

In its letter dated 30 July 2010, Sylvia Gauci, who was recently appointed as the new MCESD Chief Executive, informed FOR.U.M. President John Bencini that a debate on FOR.U.M’s participation in the MCESD had taken place on 10 June 2010.

“On that day, following a debate between the members, there has not been any agreement on the advice that was going to be given to the Government about your request,” Gauci, who was writing on behalf of MCESD Chairman Sonny Portelli, told Bencini.

Gauci explained how the Government, with the presence of Parliamentary Secretary Chris Said during that meeting, “is informed about this state of fact”.

Bencini had filed FOR.U.M’s application to join MCESD in a letter sent to the MCESD Chief Executive on 7 April 2010.

Despite the fact that on 9 April 2010 Gauci had informed Bencini in a letter that the MCESD would have considered the FOR.U.M’s request “as soon as possible”, it took the MCESD two and a half months to consider the new Confederation’s request.

As revealed by MaltaToday on Saturday 19 June 2010, the GRTU had called on the General Workers’ Union (GWU) to give up one of its two seats on the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development to the recently-formed FOR.U.M confederation.

This revelation had been made by GRTU Director-General Vince Farrugia during that week’s issue of the GRTU newsletter GRTU newsSTRING, which was published the previous night.

Farrugia had also revealed that this position was actually expressed by GRTU President Paul Abela during the MCESD meeting which had 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 had said. These trade unions were “most of them break-aways from CMTU,” he had 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 had 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 had 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 had concluded.

The previous day, 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 FOR.U.M.