[WATCH] ‘Smaller social housing can encourage tenants to get on property ladder’

MEA boss: ‘Smaller social housing can encourage tenants to get on property ladder’

The Malta Employer’s Association (MEA) has stood by its budget suggestion to involve the private sector in the collective bargaining negotiations in the public sector. 

“We stand by our proposal, as people who work in the private sector become dis-advantaged when compared to government employees,” MEA President Dolores Sammut Bonnici said.

On Friday, the MEA called on the government to involve the private sector in collective bargaining in the public sector. 

The MEA was complaining that private sector salaries were facing pressure from better conditions in the civil service, demanding that the private sector is involved in such collective bargaining that could affect their own employees.

The controversial proposal was one of several that also included a request that social housing units are designed purposely to encourage tenants to aspire for better housing or larger spaces.

When asked whether the MEA truly believed “motivation” was the key to take people out of social housing, Sammut Bonnici said that “everyone starts from nothing and makes their way up, step by step.”

“The family unit nowadays has shifted from being a mother, a father and their children. We have to answer to the market’s demand,” she said, citing single parents, separated and divorced people, or young couples who do not need spaces as large as ordinary families.

She said a three-bedroom house should not be given to people who do not require large living spaces. “Social housing should encourage people to move on.

“If people managed to keep up with the cost of living, if you manage to better your standard of living, as normally one is naturally inclined to do... I think there will always be the possibility for someone to move on. I mean, what difference is there? What choice is there? It allows people to start from something adequate and then allows them to take the next step [up the property ladder] when they are able to.“