The UĦM Voice of the Workers has ordered industrial action at the law courts as from tomorrow after negotiations on the new collective agreement for marshals hit a brick wall.
The directives will affect court marshals who have been instructed not to carry out any work in connection with injunctions.
The directives were issued by UĦM director Edwin Balzan who told management that the main issue was about allowances court marshals were receiving to carry out injunctions filed by lawyers in court.
Mr Balzan said the marshals had not seen any increases to their allowances for 15 years, which for the union was “unacceptable”.
The directives were issued after management ignored the union’s warning of industrial action over the pending issues. The management also ignored the union’s ultimatum on the matter.
The union noted that court marshals did not receive additional payment for extra hours they worked and were not entitled to overtime. Instead, they received a lump sum, given to them in the form of an allowance. However, even though the extra hours had increased and the number of workers reduced through natural wastage, the allowance had never changed.
The union had submitted its proposals on the additional amount marshals were to receive but the management never came back with its counter proposals, despite several promises.
Questions sent to the law court’s management through the Justice Ministry remained unanswered by the time of writing.
This is not the first dispute that the UĦM has had with the court’s management. Just last July, operations at the law courts were in jeopardy because of failed negotiations on a new collective agreement for deputy registrars.
Until then, talks between the two sides had been pending since 2013, when meetings began on a new agreement aimed at improving the working conditions of deputy court registrars.
However, little progress was registered notwithstanding ministerial intervention and the union’s patience ran out.
The union had submitted its proposals in 2013 in a bid to improve the working conditions of the 60 deputy court registrars.
But on the same day that the Times of Malta published a story about the impasse, the court’s management sent in counter proposals that had been promised for several weeks.
Talks on improving working conditions for court registrars are still under way, sources told this newspaper.
Meanwhile, sources close to the law court’s management told this newspaper that the police investigation on presence of high levels of ammonia in a drinking water dispenser at the law courts was still under way.
Ammonia in water is usually indicative of the presence of urine or faeces, according to experts.
The incident happened last month when inspectors from the Environmental Health Directorate were called in to investigate reports that a foul smell was emanating from workers’ coffee and, subsequently, from the water dispenser itself.
Samples were taken from an open 19-litre water bottle used by the court marshals and water in a jug in the marshals’ quarters. These were found to contain a high level of ammonia.