Trade unions 'disgusted' at PM's comments

The 11 trade unions that have vociferously opposed the new bills regime from day one said yesterday they were "disgusted" by Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi's references to them in Parliament last week.

Speaking on the unions' behalf, Malta Union of Teachers' president John Bencini said they were "deeply offended" at the way they were being treated by the government.

General Workers' Union general secretary Tony Zarb added that the union will be starting a Europe-wide campaign to inform people, especially other unions, about how they were being treated. He also did not exclude stepping up directives if the tariffs did not change substantially.

Mr Bencini explained that in a letter handed to every MP last Tuesday, they spoke of "ekwita'" in the thresholds on which the new tariffs were calculated. This Maltese word, he insisted, translated to "fairness" and not "equality", as Dr Gonzi had said during the debate. He accused Dr Gonzi of playing with words to put unions in a bad light.

Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses president Paul Pace said it was not true the unions were proposing one equation for everyone, no matter how much they consumed.

He said Dr Gonzi did not even know what their proposals were because he refused to meet them on a number of occasions.

Mr Zarb said: "Our social conscience is better than the government's. We know we are right and we will continue fighting our battle till the end."

Asked what the unions expected from the forthcoming revision of the tariffs, Mr Zarb said they wanted real, not cosmetic reductions.

All three accused the government of ignoring the unions and of trying to steamroll them. "Where has social dialogue gone?" Mr Bencini asked.

Mr Bencini said the unions were appalled at the way MPs told unions they had a point and then voted against the motion presented in Parliament by the Labour Party when it was their turn to "stand up and be counted".

When this saga started in October, the country's 20 unions had joined forces in the battle against the new tariffs. But nine dropped out of the campaign after agreeing with the amended tariff structure announced by the government following a marathon meeting with Dr Gonzi on November 22.

Yesterday, Mr Bencini appealed to the other unions to join them again in their efforts to secure fair water and electricity tariffs and a reasonable eco-reduction.

He said that during the infamous marathon meeting with the Prime Minister, they had believed Dr Gonzi's claims that 73 per cent of families would benefit from the eco-reduction.

"We believed the Prime Minister but this figure turned out to have been a farce, a lie... he fooled us as much as he fooled people out there. But he cannot fool all the people all the time," he said.

When contacted, a spokesman for the Office of the Prime Minister said Dr Gonzi had been very clear in his parliamentary input on the opposition's motion - the old system had become unsustainable.

"It is a system that penalises those who invest in energy-saving or in alternative energy systems. The old system undermines all principles of environmental sustainability, energy-saving and social justice... The government maintains and upholds the principle of social justice," he said.