Clerical staff at the government’s employment agency are being asked to work on a self-employed basis rather than being taken on board as employees, according to General Workers’ Union general secretary Tony Zarb.
Similarly, cleaners at the Paola health centre were working for 38 hours a week but being paid for 30, Mr Zarb claimed yesterday during a seminar on poverty and social exclusion organised by the GWU.
The Employment and Train-ing Corporation “categorically” denied Mr Zarb’s claims, saying “all persons carrying out clerical duties for ETC are not engaged on self-employed basis”.
The ETC and the health centre were among the series of examples Mr Zarb mentioned to highlight what he described as the increase in unstable working conditions. These conditions, he said, could raise the number of people at risk of poverty.
A Eurostat report launched earlier this year showed that 15 per cent of the Maltese population were estimated to be on the threshold of poverty in 2008.
Mr Zarb said some workers in the construction industry had been forced to agree to forego the cost-of-living adjustment last year if they wanted to keep their job. Some bus drivers worked between 16 and 18 hours a day and were paid for 48 hours when they worked for 56.
The government, he added, had to show stronger commitment towards workers and open its eyes to the realities of abuse.
Speaking during the seminar, Robert Galea, from the Migrants’ Solidarity Movement, said people needed to stop seeing immigrants as a threat to jobs and focus their energy on the abuse and injustice suffered by both immigrants and locals alike.
The opposition spokesman on social policy, Michael Farrugia, said the time had come to rethink the definition of the minimum wage. Was it meant to be enough for a person to live a decent life or should it be enough for a family to live on?
Dr Farrugia pointed out that, as research showed, children were at a higher risk of poverty. The risk was even higher in the case of children of single parents. Perhaps the time had come to introduce initiatives to grant opportunities to these children and ensure they did not fall into the poverty rut and inherit their parents’ way of life. These children needed to be supported from a young age, he said, adding that, unfortunately, this did not always happen.
He knew of a case of a boy who went to school without having done his homework and was summoned to the office of the assistant head. The assistant head told the boy to get his lunch as he would be spending his lunch break in his office. But the boy replied he had no lunch. “Rather than looking into why the child had no lunch and did not do his homework, the assistant head punished him,” he said.
Dr Farrugia said there was lack of sensitivity towards such children who needed help and attention if they were to succeed in life.
Joe Gerada, chief executive of the Foundation for Human Resources Development, said the time had come for a national effort to be made to provide skilled workers with certificates that proved their competence. This would allow them more social mobility and give them a tool to combat poverty.