This year's October 5 marked the GWU diamond jubilee. The union's birth on October 5, 1943 was a most significant milestone for Maltese trade unionism. This event falls at a time when the union has to face another landmark decision. If the present union leaders rise to the occasion and become worthy of the founders it could be the start of a new life for it and for trade unionism in general.
With all its warts, often glaring ones, the union has been a godsend to Maltese workers. It has helped in no small measure to raise the standard of living and working conditions of the working class. It has helped to mould and enhance the social fabric of the nation.
Alas! This is not the whole picture. The main weakness of the union throughout the years has been its political bondage. Throughout almost its total existence it has degenerated into the dutifully obedient handmaiden of the Labour Party. In this sense it has persistently betrayed the intentions of its founders. It has only in rare instances succeeded in breaking its chains, defied the party and worked solely in the interests of the workers. There is no need to say that those who did so had to pay for opting in favour of its members' interests instead of the party.
In the late 1960s Prime Minister George Borg Olivier called on all to come together to present a common front in view of the British Armed Forces rundown, who at the time employed close to 20 per cent of the Labour Force.
As expected, Dom Mintoff made impossible conditions that could not but be refused. The union secretary, Joe Attard Kingswell, seeing the livelihood of his members at stake, joined the prime minister on his visit to London.
The rundown was managed so well that instead of the expected mass unemployment, the slower release of the skilled workforce effectively helped the industrialisation of the country. In fact, concurrently with the rundown, unemployment dipped and mass emigration dwindled to a trickle. Such is the fruit of cooperation. Any lessons for the present serious, if not so desperate, situation?
However, the fate of Mr Attard Kingswell, as well as that of the union, was sealed. Mr Mintoff called on those who had become weary to call it a day. Mr Attard Kingswell did not. Perhaps he believed that the very success of his option would make Mr Mintoff forget. There was nothing to forgive. He helped the Labour Party in no small measure to win the 1971 election, by ordering or letting the Metal Workers' Section headed by Lorry Sant to order a seven-month industrial action at the then crucial dockyard.
Labour gained power, the workers were unceremoniously sent back to work with empty hands. In no time at all they were being jibed at and derided by the new prime minister with Mr Sant, now a minister, looking on. Mr Attard Kingswell, though retaining the post of secretary, had already been kicked to Rome in an ambassadorial capacity. Returning to his post after the 1976 election, he soon fell out again with Mr Mintoff as he tried to resist the complete swallowing up of the union by the party. He was pensioned off.
These were the darkest years for the union when it violated a union's most sacred principles, abetting the creation of labour corps whose members could not join a trade union. It actively helped an increasingly autocratic government to muzzle the free trade unions and accepting a wage freeze in the 1980s.
Its members actively took part in the violence so characteristic of the times. In short it was instrumental in the enshacklement of the workers when it had been created to break their chains. It had allowed itself to become solely a political instrument.
No wonder it recently hoped to shake off its decade-old sense of guilt by depicting performance-related wage increases as another freeze. Naturally, Alfred Sant, who at the time was in the thick of things within the party if not within the government, has not stopped repeating the falsehood.
In 1992 the union, conscious that its close relations with the party had been detrimental to both, tried or rather went into the motions of breaking its political chains. But after a couple of years it was back to its old tricks. It joined the Labour Party and an essentially employers' union in resisting the introduction of VAT, when this tax should have been the darling of the forces of the left.
It could boast that in so doing it returned the Labour Party to power. For all its pains it was left with egg on its face when Dr Sant accepted VAT at the last minute before the recent election. No comment from the union. It opposed Malta's membership of the EU, though almost all the reports it itself commissioned suggested otherwise. But so had the Labour Party decreed.
Now the union is at a watershed. Its leaders can rise to Mr Attard Kingswell's heights and cooperate to save the dockyard, and in the process really shake off its chains.
As the prime minister stated in his address to the union delegates, it would be remembered for looking forward not for replicating the past. It could be remembered and acclaimed for responding positively to the challenges listed by the prime minister.
It could choose solidarity as against sectoralism. Or it can once more create havoc imperilling the livelihood of thousands of workers in other sectors, at the same time coming a cropper as it did in recent years with the issa daqshekk (enough is enough) campaign or the airport fiasco. The government is determined. It will solve the dockyard and other problems. It has the backing of the people, fed up of pumping millions of liri in a bottomless pit. The people include many union members in the private sector who cannot understand why there should be two weights and two measures on redundancy and wage increases in the private and public sectors and extra special treatment for "the aristocracy of the workers". The people include regular and up-to-date taxpayers who are only willing to make further sacrifices if every one pulls one's weight and nobody is pampered.
I am sure common sense and goodwill will prevail.