Myths, utopias and realities

Security personnel, chambermaids, waiting staff, swimming pool attendants and clerical workers, mostly of tender working age, are being served with self-employed contracts of service by their respective employer.

It has been a while since our attention was brought to this highly irregular practice which, although, admittedly, is not in breach of any piece of our labour legislation, worries us because a self-employed contract wipes out all the entitlements and benefits enjoyed by workers whether on definite or indefinite contracts, full-time or part-time.

Some so-called "employers" have found a way to bypass our labour legislation, which is intended to protect workers against exploitation and is a safety net for workers, mainly those not forming part of a trade union.

This type of contract of service came into circulation some months after the favourable introduction of pro rata benefits to part-time workers engaged with a firm/company/employer for at least eight hours of work in any one week.

Prior to the reduction from 20 to eight hours a week, sham employers used to employee part-time workers up to 19 hours a week to avoid having to give workers pro rata benefits and other pro rata conditions of work.

When the 20 hours a week threshold was reduced to eight hours a week whereby workers on a part-time basis would enjoy pro rata benefits we thought we had secured conditions of work that were commensurate with the economic environment. Unfortunately, some employers managed to bypass this law that was intended to further encourage more participation in the labour market.

In this regard, the UĦM is on record saying that if this practice persists to the detriment of workers, we would be left with no option but to insist with the government and the relevant authorities to take drastic actions against employers who opt to give their workers the short end of the stick.

Today, the UĦM must insist with the government to refrain from awarding contacts by tender to contractors and/or sub-contractors employing workers on self-employed contracts.

The government must ensure at all times that service providers will not engage workers on salaries that are less favourable to what is being paid to regular workers. Furthermore, all workers must have the necessary facilities and instructed properly to perform their duties. Health and safety standards should be adhered to at all times. These are among the most sensitive issues presently being paid lip service only when government tenders are awarded.

The tenders-awarding committee should look very closely at the workers' conditions before bids are processed and tenders awarded to contractors. Government-awarded tenders should not be based on workers' low wages and poor conditions of work.

Similarly, on various occasions we have received reports that foreign workers were engaged in the construction industry under precarious conditions of work and receiving very low salaries. It is also becoming more apparent that various service providers employ coloured persons as if they were a second-class race, ignoring their distress and taking advantage of their difficult situations. Scandalous!

At the UĦM, reports still keep coming in about social dumping.

It seems that competitiveness, efficiency and profitability have taken precedence over some people's values. In this regard, we must ask ourselves what kind of people we choose to be and what kind of society we choose to have. Values come into play. At the UĦM solidarity remains our number one objective.

Choices at times are difficult but from our end we shall endeavour to stamp out these irregularities and give workers a voice to be heard loud enough so that corrective measures are taken in the shortest time possible.

Recently, some people sitting on their "cushioned chair" and "detached" from reality commented that workers on a self-employed contract can quit their job and seek new pastures. They claim that workers on a self-employed contract have a choice. Let us hope that people with this frame of mind are kept away from influencing the direction Malta would take when devising its social policy strategy.

The realities of life - family, children, mortgage payments and many other financial commitments - impose certain obligations on the workers' possibility to quit. Left with no options, workers on a self-employed contract will have to endure the deterioration in their conditions of work.

The UĦM will cross swords with those employers who, under false pretences, employ workers on a self-employed basis in order to avoid footing the bill of expenses resulting from conditions of work that in today's world are a necessity.

Myths, utopias and realities are not at all equal neither in substance nor in value. Our society must strive harder to ensure that cosmetics are not applied to the whirlwind that is looming on the horizon. As support grows stronger for the UĦM our stand for and total commitment towards social cohesion also gets stronger.

Mr Vella is general secretary of the Union Ħaddiema Magħqudin.

gvella@uhm.org.mt