Government accomplice in creation of 'precarious' work - Tony Zarb

The government was an accomplice in the creation and growth of precarious work with workers in hospitals, health centres, government departments, government entities and even the ETC being employed with precarious working conditions, GWU general secretary Tony Zarb said this morning.

Closing the biennial conference of the GWU Metal and Construction Section, Mr Zarb said that most of these entities employed part timers to avoid giving workers the rights enjoyed by full time employees.

In various cases, Mr Zarb said, the unions could not make representations on behalf of the employees because they would not be members of the union. They would not be willing to join a union because they would be scared of losing their job.

The GWU, he said, was in discussions with the Labour Party on possible policies which could eradicate precarious work.

Mr Zarb spoke about the Fairmount scandal which cost the country €82 million and which had led to the bankruptcy of the shipyards.

Eight months after the GWU gave the national Commission Against Corruption a sworn statement on what happened in this case, the commission wrote to the GWU recently informing it that it is investigating the case.

The union was looking forward to being summoned by the commission to explain all it knows about the case, Mr Zarb said

He said that earlier today he met representatives of Air Malta employees to discuss the situation at Air Malta and he still could not accept what happened two weeks ago when a group of Air Malta employees sued the Airline Pilots Association, which was planning industrial action. He told workers to beware of "vipers" among them.

Mr Zarb also spoke about the minimum wage and how this was not enough for workers to make ends meet. He said that there were 60,000 people who are on the brink of falling beneath the poverty line.