Transport Malta has dropped its objections to a recognition claim by the General Workers’ Union for maritime inspectors.
Sources close to the Industrial Tribunal told Times of Malta that the sudden change of heart by Transport Malta came after the change of Administration last March.
The transport watchdog denies this, although it admitted dropping the Industrial Tribunal case.
The GWU filed its recognition claim last year. Originally, the 17 maritime inspectors were covered by a general collective agreement for all Transport Malta workers that was signed with the Union Ħaddiema Magħqudin.
At the time, the regulator refused to grant recognition to another union for parts of its workforce on the basis that maritime inspectors formed part of the same category as other workers and did not have any different collective bargaining power.
The GWU then took the case to the Industrial Tribunal.
“Transport Malta was in such a hurry to grant recognition to the GWU that it didn’t even await the tribunal’s final decision.
“Instead, its lawyers dropped the case so that the union’s claims are recognised,” the sources said.
Asked for an explanation of this sudden change of heart and whether its decision was intended to benefit the GWU, Transport Malta said this was not the case.
Explaining that the GWU had originally claimed recognition for vessel traffic controllers and maritime inspectors, the regulator said that, last March, the tribunal had awarded the union recognition for vessel traffic controllers.
“In the light of a very clear precedent established in favour of the GWU, Transport Malta opted not to pursue further the same legal defences that were invoked in the first award and decided not to continue objecting to the claim on maritime inspectors.”
A spokesman for Transport Malta also confirmed that GWU legal consultant Aaron Mifsud Bonnici was engaged by the regulator as legal consultant.
However, he said his role “is absolutely unrelated to matters involving the GWU, other trade unions or industrial disputes”.