Editorial

In the build-up to tomorrow's protest in Valletta, the General Workers' Union appeared anxious to stress that it was only one of the 11 unions organising the event or, as they are wrongly describing it, a national protest. However, as the leading union within the group, it has played, at least visually, a dominant role in the campaign. It has also been involved in ungainly rows with other unions over the issue, a sad spectacle in any circumstance but more so at times when wrong moves, such as the protest, put obstacles, rather than help, in the work that is needed to save jobs.

As is its wont, the GWU liberally accuses those who disagree with it on any matter of acting as supporters (forċini) of the government, conveniently forgetting that it is Labour's biggest forċina. The unions organising the event may say they have as much right as unions in other countries to hold street protests and some are pointing to what has been happening in Greece and Spain, for instance.

Yes indeed, they do have such right, and, as The Times has already remarked a number of times, the government is at serious fault for failing to live up to expectations over the matter of consultation.

But then, what exactly are they going to achieve by protesting in the streets? The government's error lay in its failure not to consult the social partners in time, that is, before deciding to raise the rates. It could have also carried out the subsidy removal programme at a slower pace, too. Yet, on the other hand, the government is not unmindful of the impact the rise is expected to have on both the consumer and the economic sectors. The compensation and measures it is offering may not be enough to ease the burden but the place where these matters ought to be thrashed out is within the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development, not in the streets. The social partners did not shirk their duty but the GWU thought otherwise, preferring to boycott an MCESD meeting.

The GWU thus continues to expose itself to attacks of political motivation, a matter that has been bedevilling it for almost as long as it has been set up. Its place was with the other social partners to try and work out plans to ease the impact.

If its ultimate goal is that of protecting its members' interests, as it should be, the union would need to steer clear of actions that could be seen, even remotely, as being politically motivated.

The biggest loser in all this is the Labour Party, which has so excitedly jumped on the unions' bandwagon, though it is not clear yet to whom the bandwagon actually belongs. Whoever owns it, it will definitely not be a free ride for Labour for it may well put off those who may have been thinking of giving the party another chance, come the next general election, as they did in the case of Alfred Sant in 1996.

Labour's participation in the protest tomorrow does not synchronise with Joseph Muscat's projection of his "movement" as modern and forward-looking and runs diametrically opposite to the party's oft-repeated declaration that it means to usher in a new way of doing politics. Truly a case, as one Labour politician put it so well, albeit in a different context, of a situation where the more things change, the more they remain the same!

Tomorrow's protest is not in the national interest.