Mayor says GRTU wants to have cartel

Żejtun mayor Joe Attard has accused the Chamber for Small and Medium Enterprises – GRTU of creating a cartel in the waste collection sector after it ordered members not to accept the price set by the council.

The issue goes back to June when the GRTU advised a waste contractor chosen by the Żejtun council not to accept a payment of €233 per day stipulated in the tender and instead ask for €380. It subsequently instructed members not to collect waste in Żejtun at the rate set by the council.

The GRTU insists the issue is one of cheap labour and not unfair competition because it wants to upgrade standards and work practices in the sector, which, it points out, come at a cost.

“The council will not be blackmailed. The GRTU interfered in the waste collection tender to hike the price and create a cartel,” the mayor said, claiming the organisation had a conflict of interest because its subsidiary, Green MT, operated one of the two separated waste collection schemes on the island.

The council wanted the best service at the lowest price, he added, insisting it was acting in the town’s interest.

The council had asked the contractor to stop collecting waste and another was chosen by emergency order as stipulated by law until a new tender was issued in September.

However, according to the mayor, GRTU official, Joe Attard (the mayor’s namesake) put pressure on the emergency contractor to stop the Żejtun operation. Mr Attard is also chief executive of Green MT.

When the second call for tenders closed at the end of September, he noted, the contrac­tor running the emerg­ency service did not bid.

As evidence of the “pressure”, the council produced strongly worded mobile text messages – seen also by The Times – it said were sent by Mr Attard. In one message, the contractor is told “to forget his number unless they withdraw from Żejtun”.

Another message states: “If you want us to work better together, do not touch Żejtun”.

Details passed on to Prime Minister’s office

The messages were printed out and hard copies circulated to all councillors by the mayor during a meeting on Thursday. According to the mayor, the council unanimously decided to pass all the information related to the case to the Office of the Prime Minister.

“I want the authorities to investigate the behaviour of the GRTU official and offer councillors protection from this abusive attitude,” the mayor said, adding the pressure by the GRTU was tantamount to intimidation.

Mr Attard defended the GRTU’s stand, insisting that although the matter was projected “to resemble a fair competition issue the facts prove it is essentially one of cheap labour”.

He said the GRTU was determined to ensure contractors would not be forced to operate below new EU established standards.

“The GRTU has told the council very clearly its members would not be forced to operate below decent standards simply because the Żejtun council wants to save money from waste collection even at the expense of quality of service and of the contractors’ health,” Mr Attard said, insisting the GRTU would not stop issuing directives to members to uphold decent standards.

“When an association like GRTU can prove that the minimum price demanded covers the cost of production of that service under acceptable quality standards and other considerations like health and safety and acceptable working conditions, the question of price fixing and cartel arrangement do not arise,” Mr Attard said, adding the GRTU was ready to face any court on the issue of cheap labour.

According to GRTU director general Vince Farrugia the organisation was endeavouring “to clean the waste carriage sector from the stigma of cheap labour and unacceptable vehicle and work standards”.

“Most local councils are supporting the GRTU and many now can boast of much improved standards. But there is a price for all this. It is absolutely unjust and unacceptable that Maltese workers were abandoning jobs in this sector because of the extremely poor conditions operable under the extremely low fees paid for public cleansing by certain local councils,” Mr Farrugia said.

Under a national waste collection scheme to retrieve recyclable waste, councils are obliged to register with either Green MT or Greenpak. The companies collect the separated waste from bring-in sites and the service does not come at an expense for the councils.

Green MT and Greenpak collect money from eco-tax refunds due by the government to companies that produce packaging waste and are signed up to the scheme.

Żejtun is one of the few councils to have kept the prerogative to choose its own waste collector rather than allow the operators of the waste seperated schemes to select the contractor themselves. The council is signed up to Greenpak’s scheme.

Waste collectors are members of the GRTU.