Malta Employers’ Association president Arthur Muscat. Photo: Jason Borg

The employers’ association has accused trade unions of deliberately picking on the least important of its proposals for the reform of employment laws, to draw attention away from those that are.

“They focused on the two least important issues raised in our document: sick leave and the public holidays. This is the price that has to be paid if we eventually want to generate discussion on the things that do matter – the Industrial Tribunal and union recognition,” Malta Employers’ Association president Arthur Muscat shrugged.

“We had anticipated that this would happen. And it was the same with the media.”

The MEA last week published a document with 19 specific proposals about areas of the Employment and Industrial Relations’ Act in need of reform. Besides sick leave and public holiday entitlement, the proposals cover issues such as union recognition, the operation of the Industrial Tribunal, deduction of wages, overtime and the cost-of-living mechanism.

Mr Muscat said the document had been a year in the making and copies had been sent to the Prime Minister, Social Dialogue Minister, the Employment Minister, the Investment Minister, to the unions, as well as being on their website. The aim is for it to be discussed at the Malta Council for Social and Economic Development.

We have based our proposals on negative experiences

“I am not sure why all these questions are being raised now. This is a normal process in industrial relations: when you see problems, you come up with solutions.

“We are aware that the government is also working on amendments to the Act, and have reason to believe that the unions are also conducting their own exercise to prepare their own proposals,” he said.

The issue that generated the most heated debate in the media was whether employers should pay for sick leave resulting from “self-inflicted conditions” such as sunstroke or hangover, or for recovery after cosmetic surgery. This issue is far from new: it was already raised by the General Workers’ Union in 2007 after employees had been denied sick leave.

But the association believes that, based on its hands-on experience of problems in the past, the most important thing is to have a radical reform of the tribunal.

“We have based our proposals on negative experiences, on real problems being faced by both employers and unions. This would cover the appointment of the chairmen, their qualifications, the remit of the tribunal to decide on unfair dismissal and trade disputes, and the compensation that it could award for unfair dismissal.

“On union recognition, we want a system based on actual receipts for paid-up members, and not a ballot. And this should be squarely in the hands of the Director for Employment and Industrial Relations.

“We cannot afford to have companies drawn into a dispute between unions, as happened with Malta International Airport, when the airport was closed down. This is what we want to prevent in future,” Mr Muscat said.

He stressed that the MEA wants a “clear and unequivocal legal framework” but that tribunals and legal interventions should be resorted to only after the players fail to reach consensual settlements.