Port workers' foremen defect to UHM

The majority of port workers' foremen have left the General Workers' Union and joined the Union Haddiema Maghqudin, the UHM said yesterday.

The workers will now form part of the UHM's port, transport and aviation workers' section and the union has filed a request for recognition and to represent them in all issues related to their working conditions.

In the port reform talks, the port workers' foremen were being represented by the GWU section secretary Emanuel Zammit and lawyer Victor Scerri.

Dr Scerri said the port workers had left the GWU not because they had lost confidence in Mr Zammit but because they realised they had no backing from the union administration.

"What happened with Josephine Attard Sultana showed that it is not what the workers in a section want that matters in the GWU but what the union's council decides, and this was a major preoccupation.

"Equally preoccupying is the fact that they have been writing to GWU secretary general Tony Zarb, seeking assurances that all foremen would be treated equally when it came to distribution of work, but he kept referring them to their section secretary who was already backing them in their claim while nothing happened to sort out their concerns," Dr Scerri said.

Efforts to obtain a comment from Mr Zarb failed as he is overseas.