The fact that we are debating overtime during this election campaign is evidence, if any were needed, that Labour was wrong when it claimed that if we join the European Union workers would no longer be able to work more than eight hours overtime per week. If Labour were right, there would be little overtime to argue over in this campaign.

Five years ago, almost to the day, Labour was making wild claims that, if we join the EU, Maltese workers would no longer be able to work more than eight hours overtime a week. Addressing a mass rally at the Ċentru Nazzjonali Laburista on February 26, 2003, just days before the EU referendum, the then Labour deputy leader, Joe Brincat, said that I was lying when I said that this was not the case.

I recall being taken aback by these astounding statements because it was clear to me that workers could still work overtime, even more than eight hours per week, if we joined the EU. I also recall my office being inundated with hundreds of calls from workers who were concerned that this might be true. It was not, of course, but many must surely have nevertheless voted against membership for this reason alone. Just to be on the safe side.

In fact, as it currently stands, EU law does allow workers who choose to do so to work more than eight hours overtime per week.

To be sure, there is indeed pressure for this law to be changed. However, as irony would have it, it is none other than the Socialist Group in the European Parliament (in which the Malta Labour Party sits) that is pressing hard for overtime to be capped at a maximum of eight hours per week. This pressure has so far been successfully resisted in Council thanks to a coalition of like-minded countries, including Malta, that rightly feel that overtime must be decided by workers, not the EU. So five years down the line, EU law is still the same as it was prior to the referendum and workers may still work more than eight hours overtime per week, if they agree to do so. We can now safely put this down as one of Labour's many pre-referendum gimmicks.

Case closed?

Not quite.

Labour is at it again, playing around again with overtime. This time round they promise to exempt overtime from income tax if elected. Which is fine as far as it goes. The PN proposals to widen tax bands has much the same effect. But in comes Charles Mangion, MLP deputy leader, who claims in an interview intended for the business community that, in exchange of the tax break, overtime rates would be lowered to normal hourly pay rates instead of time and a half as they now stand. In other words, overtime would start being paid at the rates of normal work hours instead of overtime, time and a half, rates.

"I should suggest," said Dr Mangion in the interview with The Economic Update, "that employees, since there is no tax on overtime earnings, would be paid normal rates and not at time and a half."

In comes a barrage of criticism and, true to style, Labour duly disowns the idea. No, it claimed, Dr Mangion was misquoted, misunderstood, misprinted, misrepresented, forgot to check his text or whatever...

We almost believed him.

Until, surprise, surprise, as chance would have it, we discover that Labour already did a Mangion. We find out that Super One Radio and One TV, owned by the Malta Labour Party, already forced its own workers to sign up to lower overtime rates. Labour already pays its workers normal rates and not at time and a half for overtime. Or, to be precise, it pays them at one hour and six minutes pay for every one hour of overtime.

All this appears to be sealed in a collective agreement. And it was also confirmed by Labour leader Alfred Sant, in Bondiplus only on Monday night.

So there you have it. They preach one thing but practise the opposite. An open and shut case of double standards.

But the real question remains. If they are willing to do it to their own employees, what on earth will stop them doing it to everyone if they are in government by the end of next week?

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