Port reform meeting set

The port workers' foremen who last week left the General Workers' Union for the Union Haddiema Maghqudin are set to meet on Wednesday to discuss the future of port reform.

The foremen are seeking to apply pressure to ensure that they are able to work in all Maltese ports, including the Freeport, where the same foreman has worked for a number of years.

Victor Scerri, who has been representing the foremen together with GWU section secretary Manwel Zammit, said the port workers had left the GWU - for the UHM's port, transport and aviation workers' section - not because they had lost faith in Mr Zammit but because they had no backing from the union administration.

"Equally worrying is the fact that they have been writing to the (GWU) general secretary 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 while nothing happened to sort out their claim," Dr Scerri said.

Sources close to the foremen said the GWU administration had used a different yardstick in dealing with their case.

"Where Josephine Attard Sultana was involved, simply because a few workers referred the matter to Mr Zarb, a council meeting was convened and a motion by the union administration was drawn up and she ended up being sacked by the council.

"When we informed Mr Zarb about our claims, he referred us back to our section secretary when the section secretary was backing us. No council meeting was ever convened to discuss our issue," the sources said.

Questions are also being raised by port workers about discrepancies in their payments.

According to sources, these discrepancies amount to thousands of liri a year and the complex nature in which the payments are made makes it difficult to trace what is going where.

Mr Zarb was unavailable for comment as he is on holiday.