Tougher industrial action at ADT today

Union Haddiema Maghqudin will today step up industrial action at the Malta Transport Authority (ADT) Licensing and Testing Directorate after a conciliation meeting yesterday led by Noel Vella, Director of Industrial Relations, ended in a stalemate.

On Tuesday, the UHM ordered a go-slow and work to rule and directed staff not to answer phones or reply to e-mails and for all counter work to stop at noon.

The dispute is over a union claim that the authority had breached the collective agreement by changing the working hours of the licensing and testing directorate.

The UHM yesterday directed staff at the directorate to refrain from carrying out more than one transaction with any one individual as from today.

But in a statement, the ADT categorically denied breaching the collective agreement, insisting that the working hours of all the employees have not been changed - working hours were and still are between 7.30 a.m. and 4 p.m. On its part, the union said in a statement yesterday said that the imposition of new working hours by the ADT meant the service to the public in the morning would be cut by 30 minutes.

The UHM is insisting that the authority would apply the clause about flexitime agreed upon in the collective agreement. Through this clause the time allocated to provide a service to the public would increase by another half-an-hour in the morning.

This system had been implemented in recent weeks and resulted in a better service, UHM said.

On the other hand, the ADT said the collective agreement, clearly stipulated that the concept of flexitime was being introduced to provide a high level of service to customers by striking a balance between the customer operational requirements and the employees' personal requirements.

The authority is also insisting that the collective agreement clearly states that all flexitime is at the discretion of the management.