Contempt of court case against GWU dismissed

Contempt of court proceedings against the General Workers' Union have been dismissed by Mr Justice Ray Pace in the Civil Court.

The proceedings were filed by the registrar of the superior courts against the union in 1999.

The court heard that on August 20, 1999, Malta International Airport plc had requested the issue of a warrant of prohibitory injunction against the Union Haddiema Maghqudin (UHM) and the GWU, requesting that respondents be prohibited from continuing any industrial action at MIA or from issuing any directives for industrial action.

The civil court had, on the same day, provisionally upheld the warrant, and the GWU was served with the court order in the afternoon of August 20, 1999.

MIA then filed an application to the Civil Court three days later.

In its application, MIA claimed that although the union had been served with the court order, it had continued to promote the industrial action already underway, and had issued new directives for further industrial action.

The court was requested to order the courts registrar to file action for contempt of court against the GWU.

This request was upheld on September 2, 1999, and the court registrar filed proceedings against the union.

But Mr Justice Pace yesterday dismissed the proceedings.

He noted that the provisional warrant issued by the courts on August 20, 1999 had been served upon the GWU that same day at the union's premises in Valletta.

At the time the warrant was served, all the union's management had been at the airport where a meeting was underway with those MIA employees who were taking industrial action.

The union management had also been meeting with MIA's management at the airport, and were not informed of the provisional warrant issued by the courts.

It was only when the union officials returned to their office in Valletta later on that day at around 7 p.m. that they were informed that the warrant had been issued by the courts.

All the union officials testified that as soon as they were informed of the court order they had issued instructions to suspend the industrial action.

Mr Justice Pace noted that the court registrar had not contested these facts, but was basing his case on the fact that the industrial action had not halted when the union was served with the warrant of prohibitory injunction.

The court added that there was no doubt that the union officials had not been aware of the fact that the warrant had been issued against the union, and that the same officials had immediately halted the industrial action as soon as they were informed of the warrant.