Conciliation meeting set for today

The Malta Shipyards' management and the General Workers' Union are to meet this morning for conciliation talks on the seven workers who have been suspended after being allegedly caught asleep on the night shift, last month.

The workers, who are facing disciplinary action, were immediately suspended and are on half pay until the shipyards' disciplinary board hears their case.

GWU metal and construction section secretary Charles Agius, who claimed that the workers' suspension was illegal, said when contacted yesterday, that the meeting will take place at 11 a.m.

The union warned last Friday it would take industrial action at the shipyards if the workers were not allowed to return to work by today.

"We will act according to the outcome of the meeting," Mr Agius said when asked whether any action had been ordered yet at the shipyards.

Shipyards' chairman John Cassar White confirmed that the management had received a communiqué from the Director of Labour on today's conciliation meeting.

"The seven workers are still suspended," Mr Cassar White told The Times, adding that the shipyards' management was awaiting the outcome of the meeting. The GWU had not advised of any further action, he confirmed.

The dispute at the 'yards came to the fore only last week after Public Investments Minister Austin Gatt warned that workers who take part in "illegal stoppages" would be sacked instantly.

It turned out that on Friday morning, 50 workers had stopped working and assembled outside the human resources executive's office for 10 minutes in a show of solidarity with their colleagues.

Dr Gatt said shipyard workers were "no longer owed a living" and that taxpayers had had enough paying for an entity which continued to lose money despite having received Lm413 million in state subsidies.

The minister warned that the government would not tolerate "1970s' and 1980s' style" threats, but would not say whether he would go as far as closing the shipyards.

While the shipyards' management claimed it had acted according to the collective agreement in suspending the workers, the GWU claimed the opposite.

Agreeing that the workers should be disciplined if proven guilty, the union said that the provision which the workers had allegedly broken did not contemplate their suspension.

The GWU has questioned why the minister interfered to escalate the issue when he had not done so in "more serious matters".