Tribunal hears of 'tragedy of errors' during GWU meeting

The extraordinary general meeting that led to the dismissal of Josephine Attard Sultana as secretary of the General Workers' Union's public workers' section, was riddled with irregularities that made it a "tragedy of errors", another former GWU section secretary told a tribunal yesterday.

Karmenu Vella was testifying before Industrial Tribunal chairman Joseph Bonnici in a case Ms Attard Sultana initiated against the GWU. She is asking the tribunal to declare that her dismissal from the union last year was abusive, illegal and without any legal basis.

She is also asking the tribunal to declare GWU general secretary Tony Zarb, his deputy Gejtu Mercieca and other union officials responsible for the damages she suffered as a result of her dismissal.

Mr Vella, a former media and professional workers' section secretary, said he used to represent the interests of the secretaries within the union. The only secretary he did not represent was Mr Mercieca who, in 2003, sent him a letter asking him not to represent him any longer.

Mr Vella said he had negotiated a memorandum of understanding with the union's administration on behalf of the secretaries. The memorandum, that had been approved, covered the working conditions and code of ethics of the union secretaries.

One of the clauses in the memorandum outlined the procedure to be taken if a secretary failed to carry out his/her duty. In the case of Ms Attard Sultana, no complaints had been filed about her before she was dismissed.

He explained how on October 5, 2005, leaflets were handed out during a GWU national congress. The leaflets referred to himself, Ms Attard Sultana and Manuel Zammit and labelled them as belonging to the clique of Emmanuel Micallef and that the three of them were to be removed from the union. He had asked that the leaflet be condemned but not even Mr Zarb had done so. From then on, a group of people started working to remove them from the union, he said.

Mr Vella explained that Ms Attard Sultana kept him informed about everything she was going through at the union.

On June 22, 2006, a petition was raised calling for an extraordinary general meeting for her section's delegates. The petition also called for her replacement.

It was argued that the petition did not conform to the union's statute because the required 40 per cent quota of the section's delegates had not been secured. This resulted from a report compiled by an ad hoc committee set up by section representatives to scrutinise the petition. But Mr Zarb did not allow this committee to continue with its work, Mr Vella said.

Eventually, the central administration decided to hold an extraordinary general meeting (on August 7).

Meanwhile, Ms Attard Sultana took the case to court and the First Hall of the Civil Court upheld her request not to allow the extraordinary general meeting to go ahead. However, the meeting with the section delegates was called. During this meeting a motion to sack her was moved and approved.

Mr Vella told the tribunal the meeting was full of irregularities and he described it as "a tragedy of errors".

He said that in his 29 years at the union this was the first time that an extraordinary general meeting was held without an agenda and before the subject of the meeting was communicated to the council members.

Besides, he added, a council member had retired but the meeting still went ahead before a replacement had been nominated.

Another irregularity was that a motion - to dismiss Ms Attard Sultana from her post - was moved by Mr Zarb without any form of notification.

Mr Vella added that he had moved an amendment to the motion but his amendment was ignored and did not even reach voting stage.

The motion was then moved by Mr Zarb who accused Ms Attard Sultana of acting against the union's interest but, when asked to give an example, the only thing he could say was that she had spoken to the media against union regulations.

Lawyers George Abela and Lydia Zerafa represented Ms Attard Sultana.

Lawyer Aaron Mifsud Bonnici represented the union.