Austin Gatt says GWU chief reached pinnacle of arrogance

Investments Minister Austin Gatt said yesterday the General Workers' Union's general secretary, Tony Zarb, "reached the pinnacle of arrogance" when he declared that if Grimaldi wanted to operate in Malta it should employ all Sea Malta employees who wanted to work.

"It is indeed astonishing how a trade union expects to dictate to investors whom they should employ. On the other hand, it is rather ironic of Mr Zarb to make such a statement when he knows that Grimaldi wanted to employ Sea Malta employees who wanted to work and it was only the GWU that foiled the opportunity," Dr Gatt said.

Mr Zarb's statement was very dangerous and could potentially scare off investment the government was striving to attract, Dr Gatt added.

The minister said he was surprised that the union found it hard to declare that Sea Malta workers accepted the agreement when it was only 28 who were against while 83 were in favour of the sale agreement being signed.

"The deal has fallen through. Grimaldi wanted to buy the company. Jobs were guaranteed. We did our best to negotiate the best deal, it was the union that prevented the deal and there are no commitments from our part. We had made this amply clear at the outset," Dr Gatt said.

When the company is liquidated, no termination benefits would be paid either as these would be ranked with other creditors and when the limited assets are sold, the debts would have to be paid first. The government alone was owed about Lm1 million and there would surely be no money left for redundancy payments, Dr Gatt added.

Asked for his reactions about how the Sea Malta issue had developed, Mr Zarb laughed off the question, saying the union would be issuing a statement "tomorrow" (today). Asked why he was not speaking about it immediately, Mr Zarb said the union "was very busy".

The Malta Labour Party argued that the fact that Grimaldi declared they would be spending double what they were paying for Sea Malta showed the government was selling the line for a cheap price and that the business was very lucrative.

This shows that one should continue to give strategic importance to the sea routes and that it is imperative that Malta has a national sea line that would cater for local exporters and importers, the MLP said.

The party congratulated Grimaldi for deciding to invest here and pledged its support but said that when Labour was returned to government it would set up Sea Malta again.

The Investments Ministry replied that the MLP's position was one of welcoming someone with open arms while holding a concealed dagger.

"Labour is saying that it would subsidise a national company to compete with a private company. This is a policy used in Dom Mintoff's era and the Labour Party is boasting it will adopt it again. But such a policy is now illegal", the ministry said.