The Malta Employers Association this morning filed a judicial protest claiming that the wrong implementation of legislation aimed at promoting social inclusion was discriminatory with disabled people.
Employers were also discouraged from taking on persons with a disability.
In a statement this evening, the Malta Employers Association said the legislation as it was being implemented was more aimed at generating revenue, through fines, than increasing the employment levels of persons with a disability.
The MEA said the social dialogue process was ignored when the law, which included more incentives in favour of companies employing persons with disabilities but also significant fines on employers who fell short of the quotas, was amended.
“Unfortunately, considering the manner in which the ETC is implementing this legislation, employers are being placed in a position whereby they cannot fulfil their obligations,” the MEA said.
It noted that employers did not have access to the ETC register of persons with a disability, to which employees with a disability could register or not. Employers, the MEA said, could never officially know who of their employees had a disability and were on the ETC register;
The MEA said there was an apparent shortage of registered persons with a disability seeking work, but employers would still be fined for employment quota shortfalls.
Moreover, the ETC cited data protection legislation so as not to divulge the names of registered persons with a disability who might be in a company’s employment.
Employers who have tried to fill vacancies with persons with a disability through the ETC are being fined even though no persons were available to fill such vacancies.
“Some companies who have been providing employment for a number of disabled persons have still been invoiced with a fine on the basis that the work is outsourced.
“The Association has also received numerous reports of companies which have been invoiced twice, and others which have still been fined although compliant with the quotas.”
The MEA said that it presented a position paper with concrete proposals on how to increase the number of persons with a disability in employment, which proposals were ignored by the ETC.
Attempts to establish a memorandum of understanding between the MEA, the Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry, and the ETC to diffuse the situation also yielded no significant results.
“It is a pity that such a sensitive and desirable objective should have become subject to a judicial protest which the MEA has presented in court today in a bid to elicit a reasonable behaviour on the part of the ETC.”