Pressure forces union officials to resign

The president, secretary and assistant secretary of the General Workers' Union's metal and construction section have resigned, blaming pressure from fellow members of the section's executive committee.

The resignation took place just a day after the union's national council issued a statement seen as supporting the officials.

The section represents about 2,400 members with just over half being shipyard workers. The rest are employed with Kalaxlokk, Motherwell Bridge, Bezzina Ship Repair and Medserv.

The resignations were confirmed in a terse statement by the union, which also attached copies of the resignation letters by Marco Zammit, president, Alfred Cassar, secretary, and Victor Camilleri, assistant secretary.

In their letters the three officials said they had resigned because of pressure they had been subjected to by other union members.

In his letter Mr Cassar said: "For the past few months I was instigated by members of the executive committee to give up my post, along with the other administrative members of the committee.

"These (persons) incited the workers telling them we had signed a collective agreement that they (the dockyard workers) had not been notified about".

Mr Cassar added that the persons he was referring to were members of the executive when the collective agreement was presented for approval and they had moved amendments.

They had voted for the approval of the agreement during the conference held purposely for the drydocks delegates to approve the deal, he wrote.

All three former officials said they were ready to keep assisting the union.

Mr Cassar was recently involved in an incident in which Malta Shipyards chief executive Peter Moore was attacked and manhandled by 'yard workers.

In his letter, Mr Cassar, like Mr Zammit, asked GWU secretary general Tony Zarb to continue to assist former shipyard workers who had been assigned to Industrial Projects and Services Ltd, the company set up to take on those workers who will no longer be employed directly on ship repair.

In a statement on Wednesday, the GWU had condemned "attempts" to force these resignations, warning it would not tolerate anyone "taking the law into one's own hands" for selfish purposes and would not be an accomplice with those who could put shipyard jobs on the line.

In its statement yesterday, the union said it would be accepting nominations in the coming days for the vacancies at the metal and construction section following the resignations.