Former Air Malta chairman Sonny Portelli has stood by statements he made last year that nobody, at the time, was going to be thrown out of a job, insisting no decision had been taken then on redundancies.
Some 600 Air Malta workers are expected to lose their job in the coming months as the airline’s restructuring exercise gets under way.
In an interview with The Sunday Times two days ago, Air Malta chief executive officer Peter Davies confirmed jobs will be lost.
“I don’t know if he was right or wrong at the time. We’re now in June 2011 and not November 2010 and the situation is new from my perspective,” Mr Davies said when asked whether Mr Portelli was wrong to make such statements.
However, Mr Portelli yesterday said his statements were made in November when there was no clear indication of what was going to happen and numbers were being bandied about in the media as to how many employees would end up without a job.
“I don’t like speculating about job losses when I am not sure because it is unfair on the people and the last two months of last year, when I had several meetings with groups of workers, there was no indication yet as to whether and how many jobs would be lost,” Mr Portelli said.
At the time Air Malta was at a crossroads, urgently needing a cash injection to continue operating. The government got the European Commission’s green light to pump €52 million into the airline on condition it carried out massive restructuring, which prompted speculation on the number of job cuts.
“The number of redundancies only started to crystallise at a much later stage when the consultants started drawing up the restructuring plan. But in November discussions still had to be carried out,” Mr Portelli said.
He explained that at the time he met workers in groups of 50 in the presence of union representatives and always insisted with them not to pay attention to the numbers being bandied about in the media.
“I used to end the meetings by asking employees to speak to the management or their union representatives on any concerns related to Air Malta.”
Subsequently, a restructuring committee was set up involving unions, management, government and the opposition and all members were bound by a confidentiality agreement, which prevented them from speaking in public on the ongoing discussions.
“I respected the confidentiality agreement,” Mr Portelli said.
He denied there was lack of communication with employees and pointed out that, when the restructuring committee was set up, it met regularly until the beginning of April.
“My mandate ended in early May. The final details of the plan were being drawn up by then and I could understand why some people could not meet,” he said.
Commenting on his departure from Air Malta, Mr Portelli insisted it was “a very amicable” departure.
“I had a 45-minute meeting with the Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi. I have known him for a long time and it was a very amicable conversation and there are no hard feelings,” he said, without entering into the merits of the discussion.
Mr Portelli also pointed out that, apart from him, there were four board members who called it a day.
“I wish the new board run by Louis Farrugia all the best in the world and I believe that, along with the management team being put in place, they can do a good job,” he said.