Malta facing social representation crisis

The editorial of July 22 perfectly summed up the present crisis existing within the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development (MCESD). Various organisations within the past couple of years have expressed utmost concern about the structure and modus operandi of this council. This crisis is now all the more evident with the Malta Employers Association’s decision to withdraw altogether from MCESD.

The present situation boils down to a social representation crisis and thus its implications are far wider reaching than the strict confines of MCESD. The government is duty bound to ensure true and adequate social representation of all of its citizens. This is simply not happening. My confederation, consisting of 11 unions representing some 12,000 workers in key sectors of the economy, has been excluded from MCESD. Likewise, MEA has been manifestly sidelined through the government’s unilateral decision to appoint Vince Farrugia – GRTU director general – to represent employers on the Social and Economic Council of the European Union.

As rightly observed in the editorial, the government simply cannot elect to ignore local socio-economic developments. It has the moral responsibility and the legal onus to ensure social representation in conformity with our Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

It is deeply ironic that the very government which promoted Malta’s accession to the EU and who advocated its principles of social representation and social dialogue is now abdicating from implementing these principles. It is even more ironic that in so doing, the government is effectively excluding organisations which had supported Malta’s EU accession because of their firm belief in the same principles!