CMTU president ‘insulted’ by GWU and Forum representatives

The Independent reports that Portelli together with Anna Maria Darmanin represented the CMTU at an ETUC meeting this month, to discuss the Forum’s application to join the European Trade Union body.

When the ETUC postponed the Forum’s application until the next meeting due to be held in April, as its membership now would not be "timely", Portelli was reportedly “insulted inside and outside the hall, and later by telephone too.”

Portelli told the same newspaper that it is unfortunate that both the GWU and Forum are acting more like partisan political parties than trade unions, “and the way they attack our officials prove this.

“We at CMTU are not yet convinced that they have the same trade-unionism agenda, but we seriously suspect that political motivation is the ultimate driving force behind the attacks.”

“If Forum joins ETUC, both Forum and the GWU will use it to push their request for Forum’s claim for membership of the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development, bullying their way through while we are doing our utmost to efficiently restructure the MCESD with the hope of having a fair balance of representation which could include also civil society.”