GWU sets conditions for talks on 'yard retirement schemes

The GWU said this evening that it was prepared to continue talks on an early retirement scheme for dockyard workers only if the government agreed to:

Retain the dockyard as one entity as a dockyard;

No speculation was made of the dockyard;

Workers who opted to stay on would be given an employment guarantee, as was done at the freeport;

In parallel with the privatisation process, the government would help the wokers set up a cooperative or

cooperatives;

Boiler wharf and the tank cleaning farm would remain part of the dockyard, in the interests of viability;

And in terms of EU directives, the union would be consulted and informed on the privatisation process.

A meeting between the government and the union this afternoon ended abruptly with the two sides disagreeing over when the early retirement schemes should be offered, and guarantees for the workers who did not opt for the schemes (see separate story).