Private security firms paying lower wages for longer hours - GWU

Addressing a press briefing for journalists at the GWU’s headquarters in Valletta this afternoon, Professionals and Services’ section secretary Cory Greenland explained that the government and major entities like banks and other companies were more and more outsourcing security and clerical services.

The sector, which currently employs around 1,500 people, until now had been dominated by four to five major security companies which competed for tenders among them.

However, he lamented that in the past few years, a number of small private security companies have emerged, which were undercutting prices by offering ever-cheaper security tenders, often tendering below the minimum wage.

“As a result, security workers are working as long as 60 hours for a flat rate without any overtime or shift allowance,” Greenland insisted.

For instance, the eleven offers for the tender for security services at Heritage Malta were so low that the companies would barely manage to cover their costs and pay more than a minimum wage as a result.

Greenland explained that among the ruses that were being used by private security services companies to bypass paying overtime beyond 40 hours was to employ guards for 40 hours with a particular company, and then employ them with another company for the remaining 20 hours as part-time.

Hence, the employee would receive two payslips at the end of the month.

Another more recent tactic that was being adopted by private security services companies was to employ them as self-employed, but the GWU had resisted to this.

Greenland lamented that the Wage Regulation Act for private security services was last revised in 2000. The GWU has held a meeting with Parliamentary Secretary Chris Said to discuss this wage order and has made a number of proposals in this respect. He explained that in Ireland, the wages of private security service workers had been increased over a number of years rather than at once so as not to hinder competitiveness.

“In Malta we are proposing the same approach, since if the GWU had to ask for a large increase at once, then the security services companies would lose out on their contracts,” Greenland explained.

“If all private security companies would respect such an undertaking, then they would not lose from their competitiveness,” he insisted.

The GWU was also calling for a toughening of the requirements for setting up security firms in Malta.

“The regulations are so lax that a person can set up a kitchen operation, offering security services and still guarding at the same time,” Greenland warned.

In this respect, the GWU has held a meeting with Justice and Home Affairs Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici to discuss the matter and present the GWU’s proposals in this respect.

A substantial number of private security guards were former police officers who have retired and were also earning a service pension as well.

Moreover, private security guards were also having to pay for their annual training from their own wages, which were already low, instead of employers footing the bill.

In this respect, the GWU was offering the same training course to its members at its premises in order to alleviate the cost.

Greenland called on the Government and private entities such as the banks that were employing these people “to remember their corporate social responsibility also in respect of contracted employees”,