Social partners sitting on the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development this morning began discussing precarious employment and ways to curb it.

They listened to a presentation by the Director of Employment and Industrial Relations, Noel Vella, who lamented that there is no proper definition of what precarious employment was. “Atypical” jobs such as part-time work, fixed-term employment, on-call and telework were on the increase, with more employers resorting to this to address work exigencies, he said.

However, these “atypical” jobs often brought about problems, with workers being underpaid, insecure, unprotected and non-unionised.

He suggested the updating of the 11-year-old Employment and Industrial Relations Act and the introduction of certain measures in public contracts such as disallowing subcontracting.

Moreover, he said salaries should be deposited directly into workers’ bank accounts so the monitoring authority could verify the contractor’s bank statements.

He suggested blacklisting of companies caught in breach of regulations and the possibility of cancelling other contracts too.

Public Dialogue Minister Helena Dalli said in her introduction that other meetings would be held as there are social partners had their own studies, papers and opinions they wanted to express as part of the discussion.