Christopher Cutajar, Santa Luċija
Will Malta Shipyards end up being sold for real estate?
The government has shown it wants to keep on playing the same game with the shipyards' privatisation: the annoying tactic of playing the victim which has been going on for more than 20 years.
Minister Tonio Fenech condemned the GWU for choosing confrontation while the government has set the worst timing possible for the privatisation. It knew well enough that the subsidies would have to stop by the end of this year and yet launched the retirement schemes only a few weeks ago.
To add ridicule to tragedy, it offered an incentive to those workers who would go for one of the schemes before the end of next month.
If the government ever wanted to be taken seriously, it should have offered workers the options a year ago. This did not happen because the interests of a political party on the eve of a general election are much more important than the livelihood of 1,700 workers. 1,700 is a number higher than the amount of votes the party in office holds as a relative majority.
I attended the GWU meeting in Paola where Tony Zarb mentioned the possibility that the 'yards would be offered for real estate. Minister Fenech tended to add proof to this thesis indirectly when stating that "such confrontational and threatening behaviour (by the GWU) could only hinder the prospects of interest shown by potential operators" and that "unless interest was shown by potential investors by September 15, it (the government) would have no option but to declare failure in the privatisation process and the shipyards be declared bankrupt".
Instead of showing the huge assets, be they equipment or skilled labour, that the 'yards have, the government is devaluing the same entity it is so eager to sell, by choosing the worst discourse possible.
The Times report of the Paola meeting left out the most important statements uttered by the speakers. One of them was by Paul Bugeja, who asked the government to publish the 'yards' accounts of these past four years to see whether they are bankrupt. Something, he said, that the government does not want to do.
The perceived reality that the shipyards siphon off taxpayers' money is spinned by most of the opinion writers. They would like to make us forget the pre-electoral direct orders given by the government. The best way we could have dealt with the 'yards would have been that of changing the management and its targets.
It seems that making the shipyards more productive and increasing profits were never part of the agenda. The government's aim is to hinder workers' unity. But thanks to the GWU, solidarity remains alive and well among workers.
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Joseph W. Galea
Aug 25th 2008, 23:44
@ Christopher Cutajar
You are right, the government is playing the victim, and has every right to do so, except that it is not playing the part, it has actually lived it, especially when it (the taxpayers) has been victimised for some Lm 900,000,000.
David Pisani
Aug 25th 2008, 21:38
How about this. Does anyone has an opinion ?
Recently on the local media it was revealed that the government was paying Group 4 Securitas €489,000 a year to operate the Mater Dei car park.
The government in fact waived a concessionary fee of €326,000 that G4S was supposed to pay every year for operating the car park after Lawrence Gonzi took a decision to halve the hospital parking fees.
Are these a burden on the taxpayer ? When we could have a carpark run by govt security employees, which will be cheaper, with revenue for govt to use for social sector.
Joseph Vella
Aug 25th 2008, 20:24
The demise of the shipyards is long overdue. They are a continuing burden on taxpayers, have yet to demonstrate work discipline and quality of work required in today’s increasingly competitive market. The intransigence of workers aimed at management, their contemptuous disregard for authority, work rules, attendance, abetted by an equally aggressive GWU, has led to the present situation, which threatens their very existence.
Mr. Anthony Borg is blissfully ignorant that in the final analysis it is not management that builds/ repairs ships, but skilled artisans that perform the actual tasks. It is the quality of their direct labor that is ultimately held up in contrast with competing shipyards elsewhere, that are not burdened by attitudes of arrogance and enmity, towards the very hand that feeds them.
The shipyards leeching of the public treasury is no illusion. They have been a strain on the economy for decades on end, while wholesale work irregularities by members at large went unrectified for fear of confrontation with the GWU and political expediency. The cancer of inefficiency, if not outright criminal behavior, has now come to roost. The future of the shipyards is best served by their EU mandated closure, and sale to private entrepreneurs.
anthony Borg
Aug 25th 2008, 12:40
Why do some people always blame the worker? I have worked for multinational companies in a managerial position, and I have been through, reorganisations, etc.
But the most successful reorganisations were the ones that started organising the management system, starting with the directors.
Other countries pay their workers more than the pittance that they pay here but the only cost saving that managers in Malta seem to know is how to screw wages down.
You pay peanuts and the workforce will not be motivated in fact productivity will go downhill.
You may say that productivity is low, But whose fault is it? If The management is not stong enough to manage, than they are not up to the job.
The problem in this country is that touching management is taboo. They are the untouchables. Management had the same warnings as all the workers. They failed miserably and now everyone suffers. Or was that the plan?
The suspicions of Mr. Cutajar are well founded reference that the land will probably be sold off to build more apartments and restaurants as that seems to be the only investment that this country seems to know.
Chris Ripard
Aug 25th 2008, 12:20
@ Ray - well said, Ray, but be prepared for the "chip on my shoulder" brigade to come at you with knives drawn. Go to back issue of 19/08, Opinion piece by Joe Vella Bonnici and see the comments and you'll see what I mean.
Those who want work will soon find it - and not in "korpi" either! But some (I stress, not all) just want a paid holiday at taxpayers' expense.
Ray Gatt
Aug 25th 2008, 11:18
Simple reply to this letter - Lm900,000,000 gone with the wind. Sell or close this thing down. ISSA DAQSHEKK!!! Find the workers who have been taxes we paid, a proper job. Or is it that that's bothering them?