GWU general secretary Tony Zarb insisted this evening that shipyard workers who did not take up early retirement schemes should still have a guaranteed job.
He said in an occasionally harsh speech at a meeting in Paola that he was optimistic that the government would come around to the GWU's views.
Mr Zarb said the union was insisting that the government should respect the PN electoral promise that there would be no downsizing at the dockyard. The Prime Minister only had to call the union for talks, he said. He also warned however that if no agreement with the government was reached, the Prime Minister would find them behind Castille's doors.
The meeting was attended by, among others, Labour leader Joseph Muscat and his two predecessors Alfred Sant and Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici.
Mr Zarb said the shipyards would not end up in the same way as Sea Malta, warning the government that the workers were united.
"Castille is yours, but the roads are ours," he said to applause.
"First we met at Ghajn Dwieli, now we are at Paola and next will be the streets of Valletta."
Mr Zarb said the GWU was not against privatisation of the shipyard or early retirement schemes, but it wanted an agreement which included job guarantees.
The union wanted justice for the workers, and it also expected justice to those responsible for the mismanagement of the shipyard. He said the Opposition in Parliament was expected to request the Public Accounts Committee to investigate the Fairmount ship conversion contracts, which had cost the shipyard millions of euro.
Mr Zarb said the government had over a number of years not given sufficient attention to ship repair, which was traditionally the core activity of Malta Shipyards, and it wanted to sell the shipyard at a time when global ship repair activity was increasing.
Indeed, Mr Zarb said, one sometimes wondered whether it was the government itself which wanted privatisation to fail, so that it could then allow land speculation by the 'friends of friends'.
Other speakers included former Malta Drydocks Council chairman Sammy Meilaq who angrily warned: nisfrundawk jekk ma ttiniex dak li rridu ahna..min hawn dritt ghal Kastilja bil-karti f'idejna.