Air Malta flight attendants and engineers who will not be taken over by Alitalia or who refuse voluntary redundancy will be offered a job by the government, this newspaper has learnt.

Agreements providing for such arrangements have been reached between the government and the unions representing the categories in question, the Times of Malta was told.

A solution safeguarding any surplus pilots should a merger with Alitalia be concluded was also found but, so far, the government had not accepted to offer similar arrangements to ground staff, sources close to the negotiations said.

In the case of pilots, the agreement envisaged that if there were still any surplus staff following a still-to-be-devised voluntary redundancy scheme they would probably be offered work within the Alitalia and Etihad networks where the financial package is known to be superior to Air Malta’s.

According to a business plan presented by Alitalia to the government, Air Malta will have to sack about 60 of its current 190 cabin staff complement. The sources said that an agreement was reached with their union on a “lucrative” voluntary redundancy scheme.

Those who did not opt to join the scheme would be transferred to government departments while retaining their existing take-home pay, including allowances, the sources added.

“All unions, except that of the ground staff, have reached a deal in writing on the principle that surplus employees will be given a government job and keep their current full income. We still don’t know how this is going to work out but that is not our problem,” a cabin crew member said.

“All that has been agreed upon is still subject to fresh negotiations on a collective agreement, the details of a voluntary redundancy scheme and the deal with Alitalia. So, basically, there’s still a long way to go,” a captain noted.

The problem with the ground staff seems to be the fact that there are about 100 of them, ranging from passenger handlers to loaders, and another 600 part-timers. They were told by Air Malta’s CEO they would be transferred to a new public ground handling company, which would have a guarantee of handling Air Malta for 10 years in terms of a direct contract, the sources said.

The workers are resisting the move and insist they should be treated in the same way as the other staff members.

“We want a government job and not to work with a new government company, which, eventually, can be sold to someone else lock, stock and barrel,” a passenger handling employee said.“We are no different to the other Air Malta staff and the government should not discriminate against us,” a loader said.

A petition was sent to the Prime Minister and to the GWU asking them to ensure ground staff were offered direct employment with the government.

As talks between the government and Alitalia continue, the unions have been informed that all the agreements made are subject to approval by the European Commission in terms of state aid regulations.

Under EU rules, Air Malta is not entitled to any further state aid over and above what had been agreed upon in 2011 when a five-year restructuring plan had been drawn up.

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