Work at Maltese ports ground to a halt for four hours yesterday, affecting six feeder ships and a main liner at the Malta Freeport while two cruise passenger liners had to leave some three-and-a-half hours early not to get caught in the action ordered by the General Workers' Union.
The union's ports and transport workers' section called the strike between 4 and 8 p.m. in protest against the proposed EU Port Services Directive, which aims to liberalise roll on roll off and other cargo transport work at all EU ports. If the directive goes through, ships would be able to employ their own crew to unload cargo at any EU port.
The European Parliament's committee on employment and social affairs has already voted to reject the Port Services Directive.
In 2003 the European Commission's first attempt to liberalise ports was blocked by a decisive vote in the European Parliament. Transport Commissioner Loyola De Palacio later produced a new proposal.
The final vote on the directive will be taken in Strasbourg in January but unions are stepping up their lobbying against the directive.
The secretary of the GWU's ports and transport workers' section, Manwel Zammit, said the European Transport Federation and the International Transport Workers' federation would be holding a protest in Brussels on Monday in which the GWU will be represented. Action will be taken in European ports on Monday but the GWU decided to order the strike yesterday since it will be participating in the action in Brussels and also in view of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
Asked whether the union knew how many ships would be affected by yesterday's action, Mr Zammit said he did not know.
Mr Zammit said the GWU had met the three Maltese Labour MEPs and they assured it they would be voting against the directive. The two Nationalist MEPs said they had reservations but did not commit themselves which way they would vote, Mr Zammit said.
He argued this was an issue of national importance about which there should be no political divide as it affected port workers in a very bad way.
"The capitalists are pushing to get this through. They want to gradually take control, making even politicians irrelevant. All they talk about is the bottom line and social issues do not feature in their equations.
"People have to realise this before it is too late. The union wants to put pressure on the government about the matter," Mr Zammit. The union had lobbied Maltese MEPs and urged them to push the issue with other MEPs they knew so that the directive would be defeated in the European Parliament.
"Every vote in the European Parliament counts," Mr Zammit added.
Asked how he could reconcile his statements with the GWU's anti-EU stand, which would have left Malta with no members and no votes in the European Parliament, where this decision would ultimately be taken, Mr Zammit he was not talking about the past but about the present and future. "Now that we are in the EU we have to use all the tools available to defend workers' interests," he said.