PM tells dockers, 'don't fear reforms'

Speaking during the Dock Worker Union’s General Assembly, Gonzi characterised his address with repeated emphasis on the need for reforms including those done in the past.

These reforms, he said, should be done collectively and discussed around the same table, and not through protesting and “stamping one’s feet.” He also remarked how further reforms would certainly be required in the future.

“The country needs to ensure that it proactive in ensuring that it constantly modernises and improves on what is already there,” adding that failing to carry out the oft-mentioned “necessary reforms” would mean the country “falls back.”

“Our political responsibility demands that we look at the big picture and long-term goals for the good of the country,” Gonzi said.

Gonzi assured the dock workers that the work they perform represents an “important loop in the Maltese economy.”

During his own address minutes earlier, Opposition Leader Joseph Muscat noted that it is “sad” that the country still lacks a united trade union front. Sadly, few were the instances where local unions sat down and agreed on a common front on an issue

Describing the possibility of a trade union council as a “pipe dream,” Muscat nevertheless urged the Dock Workers’ Union to work hard towards this “ideal”. “In unity there is strength,” Muscat affirmed more than once throughout his address.

A united front shouldn’t be underestimated, Muscat said. Such a front would ensure that workers advance in their situations and would be protected from paying for the mistakes of others.

Muscat also recounted how along with fellow MEPs, he had opposed the first instance of the EU Port Directive, a commission proposal to open port services to more competition.

The vote was preceded by fierce demonstrations by dockers, who protested the proposal would have authorised ship crews to unload ships themselves and ship owners to run freight terminals.

This would have meant, according to trade unions, the loss of thousands of jobs and the deterioration of social standards. In addition, critics say, it would have achieved the contrary of what it set out to do, namely secure the future of Europe's ports. 

Since then Muscat said, the Ports Directive had surfaced a second time, and, despite being voted down a second time by the European Parliament, Muscat affirmed that a third package was only a matter of time.

“You now have the advantage of being able to prepare yourselves before hand,” he told the gathered dock workers’ union members. “Things don’t stay the same for ever, and dock workers should be ready to be able to provide alternatives for what will inevitably be proposed.”

He called for unions across all sectors to sit down and find ways to improve conditions and realities that workers face on a day to day basis.

“It pays workers and their families to be united both in the good times as well as the bad, when the country would not be faring well through nobody’s fault.”

Unity and solidarity can help cushion the hard times and the consequences and repercussions these leave behind, Muscat affirmed.