Employees suffering from a hangover, sunstroke, sports injury or any other “self-inflicted” ailment should not be entitled to paid sick leave, the employers’ association has proposed.

Employers should not have to pay the price for drunken evenings and irresponsible behaviour, said the president of the Malta Employers’ Association, Arthur Muscat.

But the idea – along with several others to be submitted for discussion at the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development – was immediately shot down by unions, with one even threatening industrial unrest should the proposals gain traction.

The proposals aimed to address gaps in the Employment and Industrial Relations Act of 2002, Mr Muscat said. One says that self-inflicted ailments, such as hangovers and sunstroke, should be deducted from a worker’s vacation allowance or be listed as unpaid leave.

The association also proposes that all public holidays falling on a worker’s rest day should be forfeited and not added to vacation entitlement, in line with what happens with public holidays that fall on weekends.

In our case, turning up for work sunburned constitutes a military offence

This would eliminate the discrimination that exists between shift workers and those who have a Monday-to-Friday job, Mr Muscat said.

The General Workers Union and Union Ħaddiema Magħqudin, who represent employees, strongly disagreed, with the GWU threatening “industrial unrest” if employers or the government pushed the proposals.

Both unions insisted that, if a doctor certified an employee as being unfit for work, it meant sick leave entitlement.

UĦM general secretary Josef Vella said workers had already given up the public holidays that fall on weekends and should not have to give up more.

GWU general secretary Tony Zarb agreed, adding that the union wanted to negotiate a way to reintroduce the system of adding weekend public holidays to workers’ annual leave entitlement.

He described the MEA’s proposals as “regressive and demeaning to collective agreements”.

Unions against pay deduction, damages cap

The employers’ association also suggested allowing employers to deduct wages in certain cases rather than resorting to the civil courts. It cited instances of employees leaving without working their notice, when a mother left before working the requested six months after benefiting from 14 weeks’ maternity leave and in cases of over-utilisation of vacation leave.

The GWU insisted wages should be deducted only with the approval of the Director of Employment and Industrial Relations.

It also disagreed with capping the compensation handed down by the Industrial Tribunal, as the employers are suggesting, and insisted that the cost-of-living-allowance should be revised every six months.

The GWU did agree on one point – the need to review the union recognition process – and would be putting forward its own proposals, Mr Zarb said.

Shift workers contacted by Times of Malta were concerned by the public holiday proposal. A nurse, who preferred not to be named, said that since she had children, time off was important for her and she did not like the idea of losing any of it.

However, some colleagues preferred working on public holidays that fell on their rest day because they were paid extra.

An army officer, who also works shifts, agreed: “It’s not a positive thing to get less time off, I doubt anyone in their right mind will like it,” he said, adding that army personnel still did not have the right to join a union and were sometimes asked to work 24-hour shifts and over.

Army officers were not paid overtime and got a lot of time in lieu, which they did not always manage to take, so reducing time off was just another burden.

On the sick leave issue, he said: “In our case, turning up for work sunburned constitutes a military offence as, in the army, this is seen as allowing yourself to be unfit for duty.”

Employers seek changes to law:

• Insert a legal definition of “union member” to mean “an up-to-date, fully paid-up member”.

• Unions must give three days notice before ordering a strike.

• The Industrial Tribunal chairman should be a lawyer with at least seven years experience who will be assisted by two members in all cases.

• Introduce an appeal process to tribunal decisions and remove the measure allowing Parliament to annul tribunal decisions.

• Cap compensation given by the tribunal, currently unlimited, at 18 months’ salary.

• The tribunal chairperson must enjoy security of tenure.

• Allow employers to distinguish between employees exempt from overtime such as in the case of managerial posts.