Last weekend marked Malta's accession to the European Union together with 10 other member states. However, first of May is also recognised as Workers' Day and trade unions in Malta joined others around the world in celebrating this date. It is always difficult to decipher exactly what message trade unions have because they represent a wide range of employees, each with their own requirements and therefore each having their own interests to protect.
Sometimes these interests conflict with each other and trade unions often find it difficult to reconcile them. This year was no exception. And in fact the main focus of the messages of Malta's two main trade unions was the need (according to them) for government to start governing and for government to live up to the promises it made. Very little, one must admit, for a momentous day like the first of May 2004 (that is the day of Malta's accession to the European Union).
One would have thought that there would have been more emphasis on the need for job creation, the need to maintain and increase productivity in our economy and for the need to hold on to the conditions of work acquired. Mind you, there are references to these issues here and there, but the media seemed to give more importance to other issues. However, I do understand the quandary in which trade unions find themselves today.
Increasing productivity may not help much in the creation of jobs in the short run. In turn, it is hardly possible to increase productivity if conditions of work remain those we have today. Similarly, experience shows that holding on to one's conditions of work and job creation hardly go hand in hand. These conflicts become even more evident whenever there is an economic slowdown, and the thrust towards globalisation has not helped matters.
Moreover, maintaining and improving working conditions for one group of workers may well bring about the loss of competitiveness for a business involving another group. Similarly, productivity gains in one company may mean loss of jobs in another.
Can these various groups understand each other's situation? Can they appreciate that trade unions are very democratic institutions as they fight with all their energy to defend the interests of the workers they represent, and therefore the onus for exercising restraint is not on the trade unions but on the employees they represent? In other words, trade unions do whatever their members tell them to do, even if the interests of these members may well be rather narrow in scope and conflict with those of other members.
When budget deficits were not an issue... when nationalisation of industries was seen to be a good policy... when government involvement in the operation of the economy was the order of the day... when trade was not as liberalised as it is today and as such competition was not as tough... Then, solutions to these conflicts were fairly easy to find. The public sector was expected to make up for any shortfall in employment opportunities and it did. This happened in Malta as well as other Western European countries.
This meant that employees moved from a sector in the economy that needs to compete to survive to one that does not need to compete and that guarantees a job for life. The new economic realities no longer allow this to happen. The public sector can no longer remain an employment agency and organisations owned by the state need to compete for their business and need to generate a profit as much as any other company in the private sector.
Trade unions do recognise that they need to adjust their policies and strategies to these realities. However, one wonders whether the employees they represent recognise the need for this adjustment. The end result is that public sector employees ask for wage increases that public finances cannot sustain and adopt a rigid attitude to work practices that do not allow for any productivity gains.
On the other hand, private-sector employees know full well that if the company they work for is not profitable, their jobs become insecure. Does this mean that in this country we have two classes of employees - those who have a secure job irrespective of economic circumstances and those who have no job security because of economic circumstances?
The worst thing that can happen is for employers to seek to exploit this quandary that trade unions are finding themselves in, for some short-term gain. Trade unions are not adversaries but equal partners in the economic debate that we need to have in the country. We must all go through an educational process based on the premise that in industrial relations we cannot retain the attitude that the winner takes all. The best solution is one reached on the basis of compromise. Trade unions are not alone in this quandary. Everyone else is in it with them.