The dockyard: Another chapter closing

J.Camilleri

Apr 1st 2010, 22:16

And the monopoly game is not over yet ... AIR MALTA is next !

Joe Meli

Mar 31st 2010, 23:32

I find it hard to believe the comments that some people are making. I have worked a lifetime in the yard and now working overseas, and I can assure those negative persons (who probably do not even know where the yard is), that in the yard there were a lot of hard working people, working in an environment that these so called ‘satisfied-Christians’ cannot imagine, even in their worst nightmare! Workers that entered normally in the yard and taken out dead or injured.
Some people still fail to understand that Malta's only resources are its people, particularly educated and skilled people. The yard was a source of skills exported to international market as added value to practically raw material. It is true that there were times of negative attitude from some yardworkers, but this is nothing compared to the good that the yard did to our country.
I am hoping that this is not an end, but just a closure of a chapter, and that the new chapter gives the desired results for everybody’s good. Albeit, considering the value of the facilities (even though outdated), the employment of 250 people is quite a humble expectation. There are only loosers here.

laurence schembri

Mar 31st 2010, 00:23

Martinelli, you are totally wrong and misinformed, no allegations. It is and always was an issue with your revered Nationalist Party to shut the Dockyards to spite the LP and the GWU.
Facts are facts, read the true story of the skills of the Dockyard workers. Only some three years ago a Shipping Director came to Malta personally to thank the workers for jobs well done. The Dockyards were the most successful entity in the whole of the Medi. Blinkers off, stop aping NET and the Nationalist Media.

J.Camenzuli

Mar 30th 2010, 21:52

The workers to blame for the dockyard closure - Their motto: less work during the day resulting in more overtime and hence more take home pay.
Now may one ask who the winners are due to this closure..........THE TAX PAYERS.

James Grima

Mar 30th 2010, 21:51

At long last. The last socialist bastion is down.

D. A . Agius

Mar 30th 2010, 20:46

Funniy, even though throughout all these years everyone has been pointing fingers at the employees, no serious consideration was taken regarding the history of managers coming and going.

And if someone needs to take an example, I believe one should look at the current Fairmount investigation which no one has as yet mentioned in this blog.

And so far, it seems that nothing short of MISMANAGEMENT has come out of this investigation. If this applied for the rest of the last 20 or 40 years, today we can write in stone (actually in marble) that the real reason behind the drydocks demise has been mismanagement.

From now on, please start counting the foreigners being given work permits to do the jobs the Maltese did and at the same time, please start a tally of all the golden handshakes, early retirement and unemployment benefits that will have or have been paid out.

Following that, lets see what's going to happen at AirMalta. It's the next in line, right?

jsaliba

Mar 30th 2010, 18:52

It is as natural a transition as the animals' shedding the old skin making way for a new and hopefully a brighter one.

J Martinelli

Mar 30th 2010, 18:45

@ laurence schembri

So you can make all the allegations you want but not allow anyone else to comment on the truth? You and lgalea always run away from facts and blame the Nationalist government for the fate of the shipyards! You must be living in a bubble.

You are all talking in terms that the shipyards are permanently closed, as if will not be hiring some 250 workers OF THEIR CHOICE and not by GWU's choice!
As if those who chose to retire early did not get a windfall like they never did before. As if the remaining 59 were not offered a government job and the last one opting for retirement with another golden handshake! Some cheek!

Will you ever crawl our from under that little rock of yours and join the real world! Getting rid of the ANNUAL subsidies to the shipyard, the government either will not have to increase your taxes or use the 40 million (a year) or so to embark in other projects which will generate more jobs.

A Socialist government would have written more cheques to sustain an inefficient entity. That's smart! How odd that the GWU didn't come out in protest!

laurence schembri

Mar 30th 2010, 17:08

Do us all a favour Martinelli, just shut-up.

Joseph Cauchi

Mar 30th 2010, 16:13

Does this day, bring any remorse to the GWU for being the catalyst of the Malta Dockyards’ demise?

JC.

Alan Cocker

Mar 30th 2010, 16:05

To J.Michallef
What about the millions being spent on Valletta Gate and the new theatre? What about the millions being spent on a hospital that lacks of everything, except long corridors, what about the millions being spent just because the Pope is coming here. We are all paying taxes and contributions just to being treated like third world people. Shame over you

Jesmond Micallef

Mar 30th 2010, 15:25

My late father did not live enough to see this. He was also an apprentice there and went off to set up his own business way back in the late fifties. I think alot of the very skilled people of his and maybe later generations did establish local technological competence on the islands. Indeed some of my own ex teachers and headmasters at both the former Technical Institutes of Paola and Naxxar were all ex Dockyard people.

Politics aside, I take this opportunity in thanking the Malta Dockyard for its contribution to the development of Malta, and towards my own technical education.

Thank you.

fred mallia

Mar 30th 2010, 14:48

Today the pn has fulfilled their revange against the docks workers! another 'promise' of gonzipn fulfilled. prosit pn
fredu

laurence schembri

Mar 30th 2010, 14:29

Why blame the skilled workers and not 20 years of mismanagement by a Nationalist Administration. Vella, Farrugia, Cachia, you should be ashamed of yourselves to talk about fellow Maltese workers in such a manner. Shame on you all.

mario gellel

Mar 30th 2010, 14:27

IX-XOGHOL, IX-XOGHOL, IX-XOGHOL (EDDIE FENEK ADAMI)
DAK GHAL BARANIN, SIEHBI EDDIE (POLUMBO)

J Micallef

Mar 30th 2010, 14:09

Good riddance. It should have been closed years ago before it suckked our taxes which could have been spent on education and roads.

Albert Cachia

Mar 30th 2010, 13:59

It is not a shame that the Malta Shipyard closed down today.
It was something we have seen coming for months
However, it is a very big shame how we have left the Malta Shipyards get to this stage.
It is not the funeral that kills a person but what happened before that.
Now PN can rest. They have achieved their aim. 20 years of bad management did the trick in the docs and has forced everyone to be in favour of the shipyard's closure. Well done PN. you got your revenge for all the times doc workers stood in your way.
Shame on MLP to have given Shipyards 'super power' in the first place and used workers as a force and shame on Pn for purposely destroying shipyard, piece by piece and limb by limb over 20 years at the cost of millions fromour taxes

P. Schembri

Mar 30th 2010, 13:57

Another case of years of mud-slinging coming to an end, to resurrect again under foreign employers! While other nations do their best not to close their dockyards, we sell our jewels! First we scupper the ship, and then sell the wreck. Typical of Nationalist Governments.

P.Cassar

Mar 30th 2010, 13:47

THE PN WORST DAY OF SHAME

J Martinelli

Mar 30th 2010, 13:43

With all due respect, one wonders who was to blame for the shipyards losing over a billion euro since taken over by the State in 1975?

Lack of proper management?
Low production?
Labour strife?
High wages?
Over zealous Union?
A combination of all the above?

Former employees applying for a job with Palumbo, better be prepared to work diligently for eight hours a day for an eight hour wage, something which was quite foreign to them in the past. The shipyards failure is adequate proof of this.

SALVU DEGABRIELE

Mar 30th 2010, 13:31

G.DESIRA
BECAUSE HIS TAXES WILL BE SPENT BETTER ?
VERY NICE JOKE INDEED.

C.camilleri

Mar 30th 2010, 13:29

One of the few promises that the PN manage to implement since coming to office was that of closing the dockyards.
Well done for the golden handshakes you gave to the workers and also to those skilled workers you employed cleaning roundabouts.
Vision 2015. Sell every entity with peanuts, and bankrupt anything that had to do with a labour government. Airmalta is next.

Lawrence Zammit

Mar 30th 2010, 13:24

This is a very sad day in the industrial history of Malta. Since the time of the knights the shipyard has provided work for the Maltese and a source of endless technical knowledge which served the whole of the Islands for several hundred years. There is not a single major industry which has not benefited from the ‘drydocks apprentices’ and the most famous drydocks school.
The knock-on effect to ship agents, harbour workers, hotels, local sub-contractors, tug boats and lots of other small enterprises that used to make a living from the hundreds of vessels visiting the shipyard shall be a major loss.
My heartfelt thanks goes to all the workers who were sincerely committed to earning a living within the very difficult and dangerous environment of the shipyard.

To all those who still fail to realise that the demise of the shipyards means the loss of the last labour intensive industry for Malta, think again and stop quoting rhetoric that has been fed to you year after year. Other European countries are still fiercely defending their own maritime industries while we are giving ours away.

JOe VELLa

Mar 30th 2010, 13:18

To all those who agreed with the closer of the dockyard.
This enterprise is not closing, it is changing hands.
It must be a profitable enterprise after all ; if only there was a political will.
Just maybe, just maybe are we pointing our fingers on the right source of the problem or was it BAD management plus BAD political interference.
I know, all my life I worked with the private sector and I worked hard for my money because there were those who so that I did.

Ulf Hilzenbecher

Mar 30th 2010, 12:59

Globalisation and privatisation still going strong, even after the global financial crisis. Not much learned... What about the local workforce? And what will happen with the huge area? This is simply crazy.

ACachia

Mar 30th 2010, 12:49

@ Joe Vella...

"The bread and basket for hundreds of Maltese"....

Yeah right... and who was paying for the "BREAD" of the drydocks workers ??? WE WERE !

Move on Joe.... Get a life.

G. Desira

Mar 30th 2010, 12:48

Now the mind of the tax payer will rest a little bit because his taxes may be spent better, in our country.

Stephen Farrugia

Mar 30th 2010, 12:41

"After all governments lost well over ONE BILLION EURO, we close the drydocks. At this rate it will not be just the warm climate change, that will sink this island nation." Still, well done for closing it, at last !

Stephen Farrugia / Right-wing

JOe VELLa

Mar 30th 2010, 12:32

One can not stop progress, but to me it is unbelievable that 'Malta Ship Repair' the bread basket of hundreds of Maltese of centuries ended up in foreign hands and foreign workers, with the locals only able to look from over the bastions.