The government is abdicating its responsibility to ensure there is a balanced representation of workers, employers and government within the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development, Labour MP Gino Cauchi has charged.

He accused the government of trying to avoid a parliamentary debate on the structure of the MCESD.

“For several years the government has been resisting updating the composition of the MCESD,” he said.

Last month, Mr Cauchi, Labour spokesman on social dialogue, presented a Private Member’s Bill in Parliament for an amendment to the MCESD law to allow the Forum group of trade unions to join.

He argued that the legislation setting up the MCESD, enacted in 2001, provided that there should be fair and balanced representation of employers and unions but this was not the case and the workers were under-represented.

Forum is an umbrella organisation of 11 unions which together represent close to 12,000 workers. It has been trying to join MCESD for at least a year. The General Workers’ Union is the only body within the MCESD willing to accept Forum although it will not give up one of its two seats for it.

The perceived imbalance stems from the fact that the tripartite MCESD is composed of five members representing the government, another five representing employers and four representing workers.