(Adds GWU statement)
The Malta Employers Association and the Union Haddiema Maghqudin have called for a conciliation meeting between the Malta Dockers Union, the General Workers' Union and the director for Employment and Industrial Relations.
The MDU and the GWU are in dispute over which union represents the majority of licensed port workers. Following a verification exercise by the director which concluded that the MDU had the most members, the GWU gave a go slow and work to rule order to licensed port workers and the Freeport reacted by going to court and getting a €1m garnishee order against the union.
Addressing a news conference this afternoon, MEA president Pierre Fava said the MEA was reiterating its plea that employers should not be dragged into disputes between trade unions.
The Freeport, he said, had acted correctly when it asked Employment and Industrial Relations director to decide which union represented the majority of workers and to accept the result of his exercise.
Mr Fava said the GWU should have never ordered its action and as for the foreign trade unions which were in Malta and taking the GWU’s side, the MEA wanted to know what were their real intentions.
This never happened before and Malta should be able to solve its own issues. Foreign unions, he said, should not be meddling in local affairs.
The MEA insisted that even just one worker going slow could have catastrophic effects as could a threat by foreign unions to call a boycott of a particular company.
“At this crucial time for the economy, why are these foreign trade unions, rather than mediating, taking sides and making the situation worse for Malta,” he asked.
The foreign unions were also criticised by Gejtu Vella, the general secretary of the UHM. Mr Vella said his union was shocked by the foreign unions' threats to blockade Malta at a time of recession. "This is a threat to the country and a threat to workers."
He asked why did the foreign unions have to involve themselves pointing out that this issue was a dispute between two unions which should have never been allowed to escalate this far.
The dispute, he said, should be settled by the Director for Employment and Industrial Relations - it was, in fact, settled by the director in a way which had always been accepted by all unions, including the GWU.
The foreign unions, Mr Vella said, had been misled and had only heard one side of the argument.
Mr Fava called on the GWU to stop all threats of industrial action and declare that it did not have a dispute with the Freeport.
The issue, he said, was a storm in a teacup which had escalated.
In a statement, the GWU said that the conferences given by the MEA and the UHM were a direct attack on the international solidarity of trade unions. This was shameful, especially coming from another union.
The GWU said that it was keeping the European Trade Union Confederation informed of all that the UHM had said.
Did the MEA and the UHM expect the GWU to stay quiet while it was beaten up and not request the foreign unions' solidarity? The union declared that nothing would keep it from requesting this. It said it did not just believe, but also practised international solidarity when this had been requested of it in the interest of workers.