Aweek ago today we had a protest march by over 20 trade unions representing various categories of employees regarding the water and electricity rates. It was hailed as a first ever event of its kind as it was the first time that the major trade unions decided to get together on a single issue.
It is not surprising that this has happened considering that the issue that has led to it must have an impact on the purchasing power of employees.
My contribution is not meant to delve on this specific issue - water and electricity rates - but to delve on the aspect of trade union unity in this country.
When one speaks of trade union unity in other countries, this is very much a situation that is taken for granted.
In the UK they have the Trades Union Council; in Italy the three leading trade unions (CGIL, CISL and UIL) are used to negotiate jointly with employers.
In Malta our attempt at trade union unity has been the setting up of the Confederation of Malta Trade Unions, which the General Workers' Union has refused to join.
In effect, trade union unity in Malta has never really existed, and this is why last Friday's event was so unique and prompted the Malta Union of Teachers to call for the setting up of a Maltese Trades Union Congress.
Let us not forget that our trade unions have not only been at loggerheads on a number of occasions, but there have also been times when one trade union abandoned all sacred trade union principles and attacked the other trade unions and even favoured the sacking of employees for political reasons.
This may sound as something belonging to prehistory. It does not belong to prehistory because we are talking of events that have hit employees that are still working today, and thus, it is within living memory.
Moreover, we also have a situation that prevailed until the last general elections where one political party openly expressed that one particular trade union has a privileged status with it over the other trade unions.
This is not to mention the open animosity that exists between different categories of employees within the same enterprise, that very often cause a dilemma for managements in that they feel the need to protect employees from each other.
Until these issues are cleared up, effective and real trade union unity will remain a mirage. Trade unions will get together on specific issues but they will continue to distrust each other.
One may rightfully ask about the relevance of the aspect of trade union unity to the economy.
All too often, trade unions have looked at themselves as social agents, there to protect the interests of the employees. However, an employee is an economic agent as much as an employer is.
Students of economics would tell you that labour is a factor of production as much as land is, as much as capital is and as much as entrepreneurship is.
This makes trade unions economic agents as well. Trade unions need to recognise their critical role in the economy because through their actions they can render a firm more or less competitive, they can cause or remove inefficiencies in an enterprise and in the economy as a whole, and they may create or remove the need for further taxation.
We can take the issue of water and electricity rates as an example. Part of the increase in rates is being attributed to inefficiencies in the work practices at EneMalta Corporation.
The government may decide to reduce the rates, but is then expected (by those same people whom the trade unions represent but not working at EneMalta Corporation) to remove the inefficiencies as well, as otherwise the shortfall would still have to be paid by all employees through higher taxation.
Will trade unions accept the removal of those inefficiencies through changes in work practices or the forced redundancies of hundreds of employees? And if some unions say yes and others say no, where does that leave trade union unity?
One typical example of this sort of situation is Alitalia, the Italian state-owned airline. Alitalia is expected to be sold to private interests. This necessitated the agreement of all trade unions representing the airline's employees.
Some unions have agreed and accepted the new conditions, others have not and could be the cause of the airline closing down.
Is this trade union unity nothing more than a marriage of convenience, because the economic interests of different categories of employees are so divergent that they can never get to meet?
At this juncture, one also needs to mention the attitude of trade unions when they are dealing with a private sector organisation and when they are dealing with a public sector organisation.
In the former case, trade unions have a knack of knowing how to control the demands and expectations of employees, while in the latter case (that is in the public sector) they really go for the kill.
Thus, trade unions have themselves discriminated between one group of employees and another.
Private sector employees do not have their jobs guaranteed and have to accept the laws of free market competition.
To add salt to the wound, through their own taxes they have to contribute to the job security of public sector employees and to their inefficiencies. How can there be real and effective trade union unity in such circumstances?
We also need to take into account developments in our economy in the last 20 years or so.
Today, we have an economy where private sector employment leads employment growth, where the services sector has become the largest sector in the economy, where new forms of working (such as home working, part-time working, job sharing) are becoming more popular, where the human resources function in organisations is transforming itself.
These developments have all led to lower trade union membership.
Trade unions are a key social partner and if they can speak with one voice, it would help social dialogue.
However, for trade unions to thrive and for trade union unity to be sustainable, they must recognise and understand that they have an economic role to play, and in future their effectiveness and their relevance will be assessed by how well they take on responsibility for that economic role.