A strategy establishing a minimum rate of pay should be drawn up for tenders in the security, cleaning and care working sectors, the General Workers Union (GWU) and the Malta Employers Association (MEA) agreed.

This would ensure that those applying for such tenders would be able to compensation their workers fairly and with respect to their legal obligations as employers.

The GWU and MEA insisted that for this aim to be reached, the Government had to ensure adequate surveillance and enforcement of employment legislation and also establish a minimum rate, which the MEA suggested should not be less than €7.50 an hour.

This would guarantee that wages are paid according to law and that other conditions are adhered to while ensuring a margin of profit that would permit the companies and unions that represented the workers to negotiate a collective agreement that potentially offered better conditions than the minimum contemplated by law.

It did not make sense for the Government to accept offers which did not even cover the minimum wage of the people who had to give the service.

The GWU and MEA appealed that no contracts are given to companies that submitted tenders for less than the rate that would be established and that serious steps would be taken against companies implicated in cases of abuse in spite of this rate.