Time to settle MCESD admission issue

Matters take long to develop in trade unionism in Malta but a new step by one of the largest trade unions, the Union Ħaddiema Magħqudin, could help bring about a new environment in the sector if it is followed by similar action from other trade unions.

The UĦM has now made it known that it is no longer against the admission of the Forum Unions Maltin in the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development. However, it is calling for a radical review of how the council operates.

Since the General Workers’ Union is also in favour of the Forum’s admission, this means that the island’s two largest unions want the organisation to be part of the council. Hopefully, the new chink in the brick wall against the Forum will now gradually lead to the collapse of the barricade, paving the way for common sense to take over. Whatever the circumstances that originally led to the setting up of the Forum, it simply does no longer make sense to keep out of the council an organisation or, as it should be properly called, a confederation of no fewer than 11 unions representing 11,000 workers.

The new UĦM general secretary, Josef Vella, has denied claims that his union made a U-turn, arguing: “This is not a U-turn. We just see things differently (from previous union leaders). I am not the MCESD’s gatekeeper and will never be. I do not oppose anyone’s membership as long as we establish the criteria not only for Forum but for any organisation wanting to join”.

This is as it should be and the new UĦM leaders need not worry unduly how the union would be perceived following its decision to reverse its stand over the Forum’s membership of the council.

The government insists it has no objection to allowing Forum to become a council member but argues that changes to the council’s composition have to take place by consensus. When still parliamentary secretary, Chris Said, now Minister of Justice, had written to each member of the council asking them for their stand on the matter. Unfortunately, six of the seven members were against a change in the council’s composition. However, Dr Said reported to Parliament last month that progress had been made in consultations between the government and the social partners on the participation of the Forum in the council.

If the council needs to have the way it operates changed, so be it but it does not reflect well on the social partners to exclude Forum from the council. The problem appears to be that, according to Mr Vella, an MCESD working group set up two years ago to study and recommend changes to the way the council operates does not really function. In his opinion, the working group “should not discuss whether Forum should join or not but set the criteria on which to base any future request for any organisation to join the consultative body”.

This matter has now been left pending for far too long and the two largest trade unions as well as the council’s chairman should exert their influence on the rest of the social partners to bring about a settlement in the shortest time possible. There is another body virtually left out of the council: the public. The council ought to have an effective voice so that the people come to know, in time, all that is being done in the interest of the island’s economic and social development.