Enemalta staff members are having to work around the clock to clear a backlog of 1,700 applications for services that were stalled for two months due to directives issued by the General Workers’ Union.

Company sources said the directives had stalled hundreds of applications from the corporation’s clients for different services, which it was unable to process because of the directives.

In February, the union had directed all Enemalta employees not to use the company’s management information system, which forms the basis of its operations, ranging from financial administration to stores and street-lighting repairs.

The issue revolves around the reorganisation of the corporation’s customer care and compliance office, which is now the responsibility of ARMS Ltd.

The credit control section had been dismantled because the corporation no longer issued bills or collected money. Instead of making the workers redundant, Enemalta found alternative work for them in the same grade and with the same pay. However, the workers involved wanted to continue working a 12-hour shift, including Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays. Moreover, they were refusing to be redeployed within the company because they wanted to continue working together, he said.

In a mediation process chaired by Noel Vella, director of employment and industrial relations, the two parties reached an agreement on the redeployment of the 12 affected workers. Six of them would be moved together to the corporation’s customer care section, where it had vacancies, and the other six would be redeployed in various sections, union section secretary Jason Deguara said yesterday.

He said the mediation involved five long meetings and several phone calls.