GWU slams Air Malta voluntary redundancy scheme

The GWU said this afternoon that the Air Malta Voluntary Redundancy Scheme, launched today, showed that the airline learned nothing from the mistakes made in a similar scheme two years ago. The union said that the first scheme has seen some of the best people leave the airline, only to resurface in the employ of competitors.

This scheme, the GWU said, would not help Air Malta to restructure but only appeared to be aimed at cost cutting.

If the company really wanted to restructure, it first needed to decide how many workers it hoped would take up the new scheme and who should be eligible to it, rather than opening the door to everybody.

The union said it was not prepared to discuss the scheme with the airline until it declared how many excess workers it had, and in which sections.