A judge has dismissed a request by the General Workers’ Union for an order stopping Malta Freeport Terminals Limited from having talks or concluding a collective agreement with any other union.
Mr Justice Lawrence Mintoff, sitting in the First Hall of the Civil Court, heard that, at the start of 2015, both the GWU and the Union Ħaddiema Magħqudin had both contended they represented over 50 per cent of Malta Freeport Terminals workers.
Malta Freeport took the case to the Industrial Tribunal and the tribunal ordered that a secret ballot be carried out under the supervision of the Department of Labour and Industrial Relations.
The tribunal said eligible to vote would be full time employees who were union members for at least 72 hours before the date and time of the secret ballot.
Employees whose names did not appear on the lists submitted to the tribunal by both unions were ineligible to vote.
The voting took place on June 3 and 4 last year and Malta Freeport awarded recognition to the GWU on the basis of the results. However, some months later, the UĦM again demanded that it should be granted recognition because it now represented over 50 per cent of the workforce.
A new election was therefore held last May 2 and 3 giving the UĦM 52 per cent of the vote and the rest going to the GWU.
This led the GWU to apply for a court injunction in a bid to stop Malta Freeport from entering into a collective agreement with any other union, namely the UĦM.
In his judgment, Mr Justice Mintoff pointed out that the essential elements required at law for the issue of a warrant were that the other person/organisation would cause harm to the one filing the application, that the applicant had a prima facie right at law and that the warrant was necessary to protect such right.
He concluded that the GWU did not have a prima facie right that merited protection. In this case, an agreement had been reached between the parties that a secret ballot would be held and that only union members would be eligible to vote.
There was no need for the successful union to obtain over 50 per cent of the votes of all the whole workforce at Malta Freeport but only for it to obtain a majority of union member votes. Therefore, the GWU’s argument that the successful union had to be the one which obtained an absolute majority of all the workforce’s vote was unfounded, the judge concluded.