New bill described as Magna Carta of the employment sector

Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg said yesterday that the Employment and Industrial Relations Bill amounted to a new Magna Carta for the employment sector as it introduced many new rights and provided the mechanism for effective redress when such rights were not observed.

Dr Borg was speaking during the third day of the debate on the bill.

Earlier, Labour MP Chris Agius said the fact that there were 950 redundancies in the first quarter of this year was worrying. How many of the workers who had lost their job were aged over 40?

It was unacceptable, he said, that workers were dismissed en masse overnight, as had happened at Portanier Brothers. Workers needed to be kept informed of the state of the enterprise where they worked.

The right for information should also apply to workers in enterprises earmarked for privatisation. For example, the employees of Malta International Airport did not know what the future held. This lack of involvement and information led to demotivation and tension.

Mr Agius said employees had to be better prepared for the challenges of the future. Was the ETC satisfied with the number of workers on training?

Out of a total 6,304 unemployed, 2,575 were unskilled and thus registering for elementary occupations. What was being done to train such workers?

ETC training courses, clearly, should be tailored for those who needed them most.

Referring to details in the bill, he asked if the definition of discriminatory behaviour included sexual orientation and discrimination against workers aged ove 40.

Ms Helena Dalli (MLP) said the only jobs the present government was creating was for consultants and those with good contacts. There was otherwise a serious shortage of productive work and a lack of foreign investment. Unemployment had soared to over 10,000 and she knew of a case where 400 applied for two posts of receptionist.

The government needed not only to create work, but ensure that there was order in the way companies operated. It was shameful how the regulatory authorities did not raise a finger as major companies buried themselves under mountains of debts, to the detriment of smaller suppliers and their employees.

Ms Dalli said employers should be encouraged to employ persons with disabilities.

She complained that too much discretionary power was being allowed to the minister, with many areas being regulated by subsidiary legislation.

Ms Dalli referred to the provisions of the bill against victimisation and harassment and argued that more than three months should be allowed for victims to report such cases, expecially as they needed time to pluck up courage to do so. She also insisted that it was not only victims of such crimes who should be protected, but also witnesses to such crimes.

She said members of the Industrial Tribunal, who would also hear harassment cases, should include women and they needed to be gender sensitive.

Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg spoke on the changes the new bill would bring about in various sectors.

The biggest change of all, he said, was that not only were many new rights being introduced, but the bill also provided the institutions which would ensure they were observed and redress could be provided for the victims.

The Industrial Tribunal, in particular, was being given far greater powers than it had to date, and it was being bound to take its decisions within a month.

The bill was extensively widening the definition of discrimination and this would apply to both the public and the private sectors.

In terms of this bill, it would now be far easier than it had been to date for workers who felt victimised or discriminated against to seek compensation before the tribunal

The bill also gave the widest definition possible of harassment. Victims could now either report to the police or go directly before the tribunal. Furthermore the victims, once their case was upheld, could also be awarded compensation without the need to prove financial damages.

Dr Borg observed that in terms of this bill, employers could not discriminate between full time and part time workers. Thus employers could not deny certain rights, such as overtime or vocational training, to part timers. Part timers also had to be informed of any vacancies for full-time work.

The bill also banned any discrimination against foreign workers. Foreign workers would have the same rights as Maltese workers if they carried out the same work. For example they would have the right for the same pay.

Workers were being given protection before employment, during employment and if they were to become redundant.

In the case of bankruptcies, payments due to workers were being put on a higher priority than before. The bill also provided for the creation of a Guarantee Fund through which dismissed workers would be given a sum of money when their employer went bankrupt without having any funds of assets. The government had budgeted Lm50,000 for the first five years. However, one could not expect that this fund would be financed solely by the government.

The bill also protected workers when businesses were taken over. In such cases, workers would be automatically deemed to be in the employ of the new owners. It would thus not be possible for organisations to dismiss workers simply by changing the name of their companies so that they could then employ whoever they wished.

Much more could be said about this bill, Dr Borg said. Clearly this was the new Magna Carta of the employment sector.

Labour MP Evarist Bartolo (MLP) said the European Union was neither heaven nor hell. It was thus wrong for government spokesmen to give the impression that all would be well if Malta joined the EU. Such promises, once they were not kept, would raise a reaction against those who made them and against the EU as well. For example, young people were told of infinite EU job opportunities, yet unemployment among young workers in the EU was higher than anywhere else.

Membership did not automatically guarantee new employment opportunities and economic success.

What Malta needed, Mr Bartolo said, was trained and skilled workers who were able to face the challenges of the future. The key was undoubtedly the need to further improve the education sector. The current situation was such, that he feared that even if another ST Microelectronics was to come to Malta, there would not be enough suitably qualified personnel to work there.

Unfortunately the MCAST was set up by the government in a rush to show the EU it was doing something about vocational education, but it was suffering from many limitations.

Syllabi had still to be set and educational methods still had to be established.

The local educational system needed to address the problems faced by adolescents who were functionally illiterate.

No one knew what work was being done by the National Council for Vocational Qualifications.

Mr Bartolo said there was no automatic guarantee to economic success. It depended on local economic circumstances and the skills of workers.

Dr Jean-Pierre Farrugia (PN) said this bill was the result of extensive consultations with the social partners and benefited greatly from the experience gained by social legislation in the European Union

He observed that according to statistics compiled by the National Statistics Office, last year women doing more or less the same work as men earned Lm1,000 less. This explained why only 30 per cent of women were gainfully occupied on a full-time basis.

This bill, Dr Farrugia observed, would not only align Malta with EU standards, but it would also enable Malta to ratify International Labour Organisation conventions signed as long ago as the 1960s. And EU membership would mean that such conventions and regulations would have to be enforced.

This bill would thus serve to improve the standard of living of workers, Dr Farrugia said.