A Labour government would disqualify companies practising precarious employment from bidding for tenders, Labour leader Joseph Muscat said yesterday.

Dr Muscat acknowledged there had been some commitment from the Government’s end in this area but insisted it was not enough.

He stressed that, in practice, many companies subcontracted by the Government still hired people on terms that were either bordering on or outright illegal.

He said workers employed under such conditions should not fear for their future because a Labour government would be determined to eradicate this sort of abuse and raise employment standards.

Dr Muscat said this would also create a level playing field for employers themselves, pointing out that responsible employers who did not resort to such practices would no longer be undercut by abusive companies that treated their employees badly.

It was pointed out that the Government had already taken such action as terminating the contract of a security company whose directors had been found guilty of flouting employment laws.

However, Dr Muscat argued that the country needed a policy, not this sort of retroactive action.

The proposal was one of three pledges made by Dr Muscat in connection with work, which, he said, formed part of a more detailed set of ­measures the party would be announcing in the coming days.

He was addressing a press conference in St John’s Street, Valletta, symbolically chosen for the fact that Manwel Dimech had been born there and Nerik Mizzi lived there.

Dr Muscat said that although the early 20th century philosopher and social reformer, Mr Dimech, and the former Nationalist Party Prime Minister, Dr Mizzi, came from different political camps, they both had a vision for the value of work in Malta.

Dr Muscat said that if trusted with power Labour would draw up a charter for workers that would be discussed with unions and employers. The charter would be a compendium of workers’ rights.

It would not substitute the employment law but, rather, serve to inform workers of the rights enshrined in legislation dealing with employment.

“In our consultation with people, we often found that non-unionised workers would fall victim to abusive situations because they simply do not know their rights or fall prey to myths stemming from lack of knowledge about their rights,” he said.

The third pledge is a commitment to new training programmes, over and above the schemes announced by the Government during the Budget, which, Dr Muscat said, Labour would keep.

Asked for more concrete details on the sort of training programmes Labour had in mind, Dr Muscat said the pledges formed part of a longer list of measures which the Opposition would be giving details about in the coming days.

“You will appreciate that this is a long campaign and there is still quite a way to go,” he said.