Action by baggage handling staff at airport

The General Workers' Union is today expected to order baggage handling staff at Malta International Airport to take industrial action, possibly causing delays.

The secretary of the GWU's transport section, Charles Agius, would only confirm last night that directives would be announced today. He would not give any details.

Civil aviation industry sources told The Times the union had last week given notice of industrial action to the management of Air Malta in connection with a dispute involving the appointment of an ambulance driver, to which the GWU was objecting.

Air Malta chairman Lawrence Zammit said when contacted that any action taken would be illegal. He insisted that the GWU was arguing over an issue that falls squarely within the management's competence, especially as the matter involved the transfer of an employee and not a promotion.

He warned that if the GWU persisted in adopting such a confrontational attitude, it would be endangering jobs both at Air Malta and in the tourist trade.

A dispute between the GWU and Air Malta over the filling of vacancies last month was solved following a conciliation meeting presided over by Noel Vella, Director of Industrial Relations and Employment. As a result of that agreement, Air Malta undertook to make an internal call for applications for employees who had been carrying out work classified beyond their grade for a year or over to fill the higher grade.

The GWU had accused Air Malta then of violating the collective agreement by not promoting workers to the higher grade and had even threatened industrial action.