The General Workers' Union and its supporting foreign unions came under fire from the Finance Minister, employers and another union over the recognition saga that has escalated from a dispute between two unions into a strike at the Freeport and a threat of international boycott.
In separate press conferences, the Malta Employers' Association and the Union Ħaddiema Magħqudin called for a conciliation meeting to be held and criticised the comments made by some foreign trade unionists who threatened to blockade Maltese exports in solidarity with the GWU.
Similarly, Finance Minister Tonio Fenech criticised the GWU for acting "irresponsibly" following a meeting of the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development yesterday.
"Industrial disputes should be taken up with those involved. You don't involve the Freeport, which is the lifeline of this country and which in this situation is also going through this crisis," he said.
The saga began weeks ago when the GWU claimed it represented the majority of port workers and should therefore be recognised as the official union at the Freeport. The Malta Dockers' Union disputed this, so the Freeport asked the Director of Labour and Industrial Relations to start a verification process.
The director then asked to see the membership records of both unions but the GWU said it preferred to hold a secret ballot in order to protect its members from "retaliation".
The director then held one-on-one interviews and announced that the MDU held the majority, leading the GWU to launch industrial action against the Freeport.
The Freeport then took the matter to court and managed to freeze the union's assets while holding the union responsible for losses.
The GWU has called on foreign trade unions to support its cause and a number of them threatened to boycott the international owners of Malta Freeport in their own countries.
The MEA yesterday insisted that the issue should never have developed into a dispute with Malta Freeport and should have been settled by the verification process undertaken by the Director of Employment and Industrial Relations. Their press conference was also attended by members of the Chamber of Commerce and Enterprise.
MEA president Pierre Fava said the system used by labour director Noel Vella had been employed about 15 times in different instances last year and was the commonly accepted way of doing things. Therefore, the GWU should have accepted the result rather than calling industrial action and inviting foreign trade unions to boycott Malta.
Mr Fava said the industrial action called by the GWU would have catastrophic effects on Maltese industry, especially at a time of global recession, He questioned whether the foreign unions that were getting involved had any ulterior motives.
"We should be able to solve our own issues," he said, calling this a "storm in a teacup" that had been blown even further out of proportion in recent days. Mr Fava added that the foreign unions should have tried to mediate rather than make things worse by taking sides.
Meanwhile, the UĦM said the foreign unions had been "misled" because they were only shown one side of the coin. General secretary Gejtu Vella said his union felt obliged to comment on the dispute after the threats the foreign trade unionists made.
He said that at such a critical economic period, the Maltese unions should be discussing the recent report by the Central Bank rather than union recognition.
He would welcome a discussion on union recognition but the verification process used by the labour director had been used and accepted in the past, even by the GWU itself, he said.
The law protected workers from discrimination, so if the GWU had any fears of "retaliation" it should go to the police rather than make empty allegations.
"God forbid we live in a country where workers are threatened to join or leave a union," he added.
Meanwhile, GWU general secretary Tony Zarb said that the effects of the strike would not be catastrophic as alleged and that his union would accept to show its membership records to the Director of Labour if he guaranteed confidentiality of his members.
He said the director had lost the union's trust and that the verification process was undemocratic.