Cutting labour cost is not the only answer - Dalli

Social Policy Minister John Dalli yesterday urged industrial sectors to work together to ensure that work practices changed with the times.

Mr Dalli said survival hinged on productivity and innovation, stressing that competition was based on these two elements and not on reducing costs.

"We cannot keep on thinking that we can be competitive only by cutting labour costs," Mr Dalli said.

The minister was addressing a meeting between the Union Ħaddiema Maqgħudin and the World Organisation of Workers (WOW). The UĦM recently became a member of WOW which will be holding its congress in Malta in November.

Accepting the impromptu invitation to open the congress in early November, which will gather around 150 delegates for a week, Mr Dalli said the labour relations landscape was changing and flexibility was affecting the way of thinking, while pressure was mounting on workers to adapt to the new business scenario.

Flexibility required the development of safety nets for workers, Mr Dalli said, stressing that the objective was to fight and reduce unemployment, abuse and exploitation. One could not expect to reap rewards, while keeping old-fashioned systems, he warned.

WOW president Roel Rotshuizen explained that the organisation stood for the values of solidarity and subsidiarity and was close to the principles of Christianity. It believed in trade union democracy and pluralism.

Speaking about the changing labour scenario, he said flexibility was a term everyone was enthusiastic about, but a flexible worker, with no formal contract, was also bad for the employer in the long term.

UĦM general secretary Gejtu Vella highlighted the importance of the union's membership of WOW, saying it did not live in isolation and had to strengthen its international relations with organisations that shared Christian values.

Mr Vella also said the union was pleased the Government had specifically appointed a parliamentary secretary for public dialogue and that the Malta-EU Steering Committee would be on stream again.

The president of the European organisation of WOW, Günther Tausznitz, also addressed the meeting, pointing out the good relations between the trade union and the Government, something that was not common around the world.