The report of April 29 on the unveiling by the General Workers’ Union of a monument in Paola Square, dedicated to those who were taken to court following the dangerous happenings of April 28, 1958, brought back stark memories.
My father was Paola’s primary school headmaster at the time and, in those days, parish priests and headmasters were key figures in towns and villages. He was very worried about the GWU’s call for a general strike and wasn’t sure whether to open his school or not.
My father knew personally both Dominic Mintoff and Vivienne de Gray, as they had been at school together, and he even got Christmas cards from Mintoff.
He was an old-fashioned disciplinarian, and when I once asked him how he voted, he retorted that that was none of my business and never to ask such an impertinent question again.
On April 28, 1958, he decided his duty was to open the school. Fortunately, he and the school suffered no repercussions, but Paola and Tarxien were extremely tense that day. Following the UK-integration negotiations debacle, Mintoff had resigned and decided to “rule from the streets”, although rather differently from the peaceful, Ghandi style.
From the roof of our house we could see the Paola hill “stone-throwing battle”, and Tarxien’s police station was totally ransacked. Rumours abounded that Governor Laycock had ordered British army commandos to march towards Paola but were said to have been later recalled back to barracks to avoid a possible repeat performance of the Sette Giugno tragedy.
In Paola Square, Mintoff was at his inimitable, rabble-rousing, oratorical best. He claimed he knew the British well. They would bestow honours on you when you’re needed (referring to the George Cross) and then kick you in the backside when you were of no more use (referring to the run-down dockyard).
What they wanted, the oratory continued, with the familiar pauses, was to keep the Union Jack flying in Malta but pay nothing in return (as had happened in Cyprus). “Is that what you want?” he asked the huge crowd. The expected, resounding “No” response followed immediately.
He went on to explain his vision for Malta – a “Switzerland in the Mediterranean” – a vision borrowed a few decades later by Alfred Sant.
With independence, the Maltese State inherited this dockyard poisoned chalice which, by the time it was finally sold off to the private sector, had become responsible for a sizeable chunk of Malta’s national debt
Police Commissioner de Gray and his force were being unfairly vilified. After all, they were only doing their duty, countering provoked civil unrest and trying to protect private property (such as Rediffusion transmission lines).
The Empire was dismantling itself and military naval dockyards were being run down, not only in Malta but also in the UK. The dockyard had not been all negative, as portrayed by the GWU. Its British dockyard school had produced hundreds of naval architects, draftsmen and skilled workers with qualifications recognised throughout the Empire.
One of these former Malta dockyard workmen, phoning in from overseas on one of our local radio stations, claimed that what destroyed the dockyard was not the management but union stewards who insisted with workers that no work be carried out efficiently.
With independence, the Maltese State inherited this dockyard poisoned chalice which, by the time it was finally sold off to the private sector, had become responsible for a sizeable chunk of Malta’s national debt. More recently, the partial sale of Enemalta, linked to Chinese collaboration in the energy sector, was another good economic move.
Considering its minute size and lack of natural resources, Malta has exploited its geographical position, history and its second official language, English, very well, perhaps heading towards becoming a Mediterranean “Tiger economy”.
However, only a few decades into our independent-state existence, at least a couple of political happenings marred the Mediterranean Switzerland vision.
Mintoff’s regime nationalised a private Maltese bank under dubious circumstances and enacted legislation not only outlawing workplace or occupation pensions but also permitting workers’ pension contributions to be used in other welfare sectors.
These social security legislative changes of over 30 years ago have resulted in great confusion as to whether or not the pension system is at present sustainable
Furthermore, they have also hit badly several thousand workers who happened to have contributed to both an occupational pension and to the newer (post-1979) so-called two-thirds pension. The Mintoff regime’s legislation (still unamended) requires one contributory pension to be deducted from the other.
In no other civilised state is one contributory pension subtracted from a second contributory one.
The GWU appears to have been unperturbed, for over 30 years, by this institutionalised defrauding of workers’ pensions – except that recently its officials were making loud noises about the occupational pensions of port workers.
Some workers seem to be more equal than others.
Albert Cilia-Vincenti is a former chairman of the Alliance of Pensioners’ Organisations.