The General Workers’ Union is close to reaching an agreement with government over the pension due to about 600 former port workers, general secretary Tony Zarb said this morning.

He said that the union was proposing that each ex-worker be given about €28,000. The union had asked the ex-workers and their heirs to fill in forms by the end of April and had received about 450 forms so far. About 70 per cent of them were filled by heirs.

Speaking during a press conference, Mr Zarb explained that in 1973 port workers had set up a Pension and Contingency Fund that reached Lm17 million by 2007.

The money was only meant to be used for specific purposes including payment of pensions and insurances. But the Nationalist government used a large bulk of the fund during the port reform. Money continued to be deposited in the fund, according to the 1973 agreement, and there was currently about €12 million.

The former port workers filed a court case claiming compensation and the case had been shelved pending negotiations with the Labour government. An agreement is soon to be reached, he said.

Mr Zarb accused the Nationalist Party of hypocrisy following an article published in PN newspaper In-Nazzjon last Friday claiming the ex-port workers had a right over that money.

Ex worker Joseph Caruana mapped out the fight he took on and the saga he faced with the PN government that resulted in no agreement since he kept being told they had no right over the money.

“One lira out of every three I earned went into the fund... The fund was there for us workers and for our children... This was a hold-up without a mask,” he said.

 

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