No more cost of living increases

The Nationalist government's decision to reduce the number of public holidays for Maltese workers to 10 means that this year we will have fewer public holidays than Singapore (11), India (12), China (12), the United States (13), Malaysia (14), Japan (15) and South Korea (16).

Eighteen other European Union member states (Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Spain, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Austria, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Finland and Sweden) will have more public holidays than us this year.

If we combine the number of public holidays with the minimum annual leave employees are legally entitled to in the EU we will also find that government's decision to make our employees lose the public holidays that fall on weekends is pushing us down towards the bottom of the heap. Employees in most of the other EU states have more annual leave and public holidays than us.

Parliamentary Secretary Tonio Fenech seemed surprised at this information when I disclosed it during the parliamentary debate we had on this issue. He was incredulous and asked me to publish this information. I told him he could check it on many different Websites. I told him he would also find many studies showing that the reduction of public holidays does not increase a country's productivity or competitiveness and also lowers the quality of life of workers and their families.

During the debate he also said that the removal of the cost of living increases not to let inflation diminish the purchasing power of workers and employees was never on the government's agenda. Mr Fenech seems to have a very short memory. In a hotel at Marsascala on September 14, 2004, he addressed a meeting of the Malta Council for Social and Economic Development and told them that government had a budget of Lm200 million for the salaries of government employees. He stressed that these Lm200 million had to remain fixed for the coming three years so that Malta would carry out the Convergence Plan submitted to the European Union to reduce the structural deficit.

Sacking 4,500 public employees

When asked by the General Workers Union representatives how it was at all possible not to spend more than those Lm200 million, Mr Fenech opened his laptop and showed an equation on the screen which made it clear that for Government's wage bill to remain at Lm200 million, cost of living increases had to be removed. He said that giving Government employees cost of living increases would mean that for the coming three years government would have to reduce the number of employees by 1,500 every year.

This means that 4,500 employees would lose their jobs in the public sector. Mr Fenech explained that Government was ready to pay 25 per cent of the salaries of those 4,500 who would lose their government jobs and are absorbed by the private sector. Funding 25 per cent of the salaries of 4,500 government employees and wanting to remain within the limit of Lm200 million for its payroll, Government would have to sack 5,400 public workers.

How does Government intend to proceed for the next three years not to spend more than Lm200 million on its payroll? What are the measures it is going to take? Before the 2003 general election the Nationalist government never said that the public sector payroll was unsustainable. Over the years it boasted that it handed out handsome collective agreements full of salary increases and allowances for its workers.

In those years the Nationalist government had the extravagant policy of 'money no problem' to buy support and votes from different sectors of our society while running up an unsustainable structural deficit that EU membership is now forcing it to address.

Before the 2003 general election the Nationalist government never had the honesty to say that Maltese workers had too many public holidays and legally entitled leave days and these were making the country less productive and competitive! Now it has reduced the number of public holidays without really showing any serious proof that this will improve the country's competitiveness in the global economy.

What other working conditions does the Nationalist government plan to reduce over the coming years? It must have the honesty and courage to explain how it is going to keep its payroll within the Lm200 million limit over the next three years to reduce the structural deficit while not undermining further the working conditions of employees and their families.

evaristbartolo@hotmail.com