The General Workers' Union was ordered to pay €8,000 compensation to a man who was dismissed unfairly from its now-closed subsidiary, Cargo Handling.

An industrial tribunal ruled that operations superintendent Joseph Paris had been unfairly sacked in March 2006 after having worked for the company since 1971.

Cargo Handling has since closed down after losing a 30-year contract to run cargo handling in the ports.

The tribunal heard how, in 2005, when the government called for an expression of interest for a tender for the handling of cargo in the ports, Mr Paris joined a consortium to bid for the contract. Eventually, this consortium had been shortlisted but lost out to Valletta Gateway Terminals Ltd.

Mr Paris said that before he had lost his job, nobody had approached him or complained about his participation in the consortium.

During the hearing, the company said Mr Paris had overall control on the company's operations and that, although he did not form part of management, the operation was almost entirely in his hands.

Tribunal chairman Leslie Cuschieri said that being the highest ranking employee did not mean one formed part of the administration. Evidence of this was the fact that company director Enrico Overrend had been notified by the shareholders that they were going to place a bid for the tender. However, the other employees, including Mr Paris, had been left in the dark.

Mr Paris and the other workers had become worried because, as far as they were concerned, their contracts expired on June 30, 2006 and they would have become redundant.

Dr Cuschieri noted that the employees had wanted to keep the company running and had even offered to buy it. "It looks as if the shareholders had only their interests at heart at the time," he said.

He said Mr Paris had made a serious mistake when he failed to inform his superiors of his intentions to form part of a bidding consortium as he should have done.

In his considerations, Dr Cuschieri said the company had left it far too late to start thinking about its employees, that Mr Paris had made a serious mistake and that this mistake had no bad effect on the company.

He also said that just because Mr Paris had participated in the expression of interest with another consortium, this did not warrant his dismissal, adding that, after participating in the expression of interest, Mr Parnis had continued working without causing any prejudice to the company.