The opt-out clause

In the last few days, we have witnessed the controversy created by the conflicting versions of how John Attard Montalto and Louis Grech, two of three Labour MEPs representing Malta in the European Parliament, have voted to the amendments being piloted by the European Socialists, backed by the European Greens, to abolish the opt-out clause in the Working Time Directive.

These amendments, if they had to come into force, would mean that all the European workers, including those in Malta, will be restricted to work only eight hours of overtime a week. This is against the interests of the Maltese workers. This amendment means that the workers will be losing out on one of the fundamental workers' rights which the European Union of pre-May 1, 2004 gave to its citizens years ago.

The Working Time Directive and the opt-out clause were used as a political ball in the run up to the referendum and the general election of 2003. The Malta Labour Party together with the General Workers' Union were telling us that if we join the European Union, the workers will be forced to work only eight hours of overtime a week.

That this was not true, we already knew than, so much so, that even the Union Haddiema Maghqudin had cautioned us that this was not the case. Now the European Socialists and the Greens want to take that right away from the workers.

To make things worse, the GWU has gone along with the European Socialists and even went a step further. The GWU not only wants to deny the workers to freely exercise their right of the opt-out clause but actually wants to bestow that right to itself. This is what it voted for in the Economic and Social Committee of the European Union.

This is absolutely unacceptable to the workers, even more when this is coming from the GWU. As the general secretary of the UHM rightly said when he was interviewed by the press, the right of the opt-out clause in the Working Time Directive should only be exercised by the workers and no union should decide for the individual worker how much hours of overtime that same worker must or must not work.

Faced with such u-turns by the MLP and by the GWU one can easily conclude that the UHM is the only general trade union in Malta that truly has the workers' rights at heart.