About 100 workers organised a demonstration outside Palumbo Shipyard during their lunch break yesterday to contest claims that their work had damaged a number of cars in nearby Cospicua.

We don’t want to lose our jobs. Our families depend on us for our livelihood

Waving wooden placards and wearing their hard hats and overalls, the workers walked up the hill to the company’s sign in Għajn Dwieli Road, Cospicua, just as the clock struck noon – the time their lunch break started.

“We don’t want to lose our jobs. Our families depend on us for our livelihood,” said Richard Carabott, a shipyard worker.

He explained that the workers decided to organise the event without informing the management because they were worried about claims made by a number of angry Cospicua residents whose vehicles were damaged at the time when a large Italian ship was being sprayed at the Palumbo Shipyard.

Last Saturday about 150 Cospicua residents gathered outside the city’s police station complaining that fine specks of white paint, resembling dust, had coated their cars.

They blamed the large Italian ship that was being sprayed at the nearby Palumbo Shipyard.

But the workers contested this and Mr Carabott said: “Our cars are parked nearby and we never found anything of the sort on them. Are we mad to damage the super yachts, which are just next to us?”

The company had invested a lot in changing their working methods and “things had changed from the way they used to be”.

Many of the workers held up placards reading: “We are doing our best to improve the way we work but other people are disrupting”; “The shipyard is our families’ livelihood and a day doesn’t go by without someone trying to disrupt us” and “When will these lies stop?”

Mr Carabott said this could be the work of someone “who was trying to put a spoke in our wheels” although when pressed he could not explain why.

“We are trying to work in peace and quiet,” he said, alluding to a hidden agenda.

He insisted that when “the experts” went to the shipyard they did not find anything untoward there.

Although he could not explain what the residents had found on their cars, the “dust” could have come from other sources, such as the power station, Mr Carabott said.

The shipyards had problems in the past but “the management changed things as more precautions are being taken, even when blasting”.