GWU has less than 20,000 paid-up members - report

The General Workers' Union, which claims to be the largest trade union, had 19,619 paid-up members in June of last year, a confidential GWU document seen by The Times reveals. This is only around half the number of members the union actually declares.

A comparison between figures of paid-up members as listed in the internal report and the official published statistics reveals huge discrepancies across all the union's sections.

And the number of GWU members is likely to be even lower since the document was drawn up because of recent resignations as well as restructuring exercises and workers taking early retirement schemes.

The union's statute, in the section dealing with membership, states that a member is no longer considered as such only if he notifies the general secretary in writing and hands the letter personally to the general secretary.

On the other hand, the statute also makes it clear that those who are not up to date in their payments have no right to be represented by the union. Nor are they entitled to vote.

The internal document, however, contains figures of members who have actually paid their membership fee, for 2003, 2004 and 2005.

In December 2003, the report shows, the GWU had 22,523 workers who had paid their membership and 6,293 pensioners, who pay their fee only once in their lifetime, bringing the total to 28,809. In the declarations submitted to the Registrar of Trade Unions in the same month, published in the Government Gazette, the GWU declared it had 47,653 members. In the gazette, membership is not defined as paid-up or otherwise.

In December 2004, the GWU had 27,003 paying members, including 6,316 pensioners, according to the document. In the declaration to the registrar of trade unions that month, the GWU declared it had a total of 46,489 members.

According to figures published in the Government Gazette last January, referring to 2004/2005 membership, the GWU's public sector section had 6,184 members when, going by the internal document, only 2,142 were paid up.

The maritime and aviation section was declared to have 3,887 members when the confidential figures show 2,074 paid-up members. The services and media section was said to have 2,836 members; the document gave a figure of 1,746 paid-up members.

The energy, chemicals and printing section, headed at the time by Geitu Mercieca, claimed to have 6,650 members, against 3,950 paying members in the document; the manufacture and small industries section is reported having 5,367 members (against 2,601); the metal and construction section was declared to have 5,125 members (2,323); the telecommunications and energy section was listed as having 5,780 members (2,944), and the hospitality and food section 3,544 (2,601).

Only the membership of the pensioners' association was close to the number revealed by the internal document: 6,528 as compared to 6,291.

It is not only the document that shows far higher official figures than what was being shown internally. The official figures for 2004 and 2005 say that the GWU had 5,124 members in the shipyard's section when the number of workers at the Malta Shipyards Ltd, which took over the remaining workers of both the Malta Drydocks and Malta Shipbuilding, was only around 1,700. To that there need to be added a few hundred in other private or public industries in the sector represented by this section.

When asked to explain the discrepancies between the internal figures and what the union declared to the registrar of trade unions, Mr Zarb said:

"The informer who passed the information to you was a union official who is no longer an official and who had the wrong figures which we gave him on purpose because we knew that he would be passing them to the media.

"I am giving you two other figures, which are also not real: 6,316 and 3,980, which you must also have, simply to show you that we know who passed the information to you," Mr Zarb said.

But the gaps have also been confirmed by former GWU section secretaries who resigned or who were removed over the past months. They told The Times that the union administration had given section secretaries copies of the internal report on the declining membership and had asked them to "pull up their socks and attract new members".

Contacted yesterday, former metal workers section secretary Alfred Cassar said the section had around 2,800 members in 2003, but this went down to around 2,300 in 2004 after the restructuring exercise. "The membership of the section today stands at around 1,800," Mr Cassar said. The GWU claims to have over 5,000 members in this section.

Former port workers' section secretary Manwel Zammit said the section had around 2,000 members when he left recently. In this section, the union claims to have close to 4,000 members.

Karmenu Vella, former media and professional workers section secretary, confirmed his section had around 1,400 paid-up members when he too left recently but the GWU has put membership here at 2,800.

Josephine Attard Sultana, who was sacked by the union's council following a motion by the union administration, said her section had around 2,100 paid up members, but the GWU declared this section had close to 6,200.

In a recent interview, the GWU general secretary said he does not want to have an audit certifying the union's membership figures, saying this is "an internal affair", even though the Employment and Industrial Relations Act empowers the Director of Industrial Relations to carry out such an audit.

In contrast, Union Haddiema Maghqudin general secretary, Gejtu Vella, said a verification exercise of the UHM's membership can be carried out at any time.

In 2005, the UHM reported it had 26,018 members, which is higher than the number of paid-up members reported in the GWU's internal document.