A union's metamorphosis

In his address to senior citizens members of the General Workers' Union, Tony Zarb, the union's general secretary, found it difficult to deny the strong accusations I made in my short address to the Nationalist Party meeting held in Sliema with regard to the European Union issue. In fact, the only arguments he brought forward were that the GWU delegates voted unanimously against membership of the EU, that the reports the union commissioned - which he is afraid to publish - say there could be employment sectors that may be affected negatively, that he is prepared to take an affidavit that nobody from the Labour Party put any pressure on his union to mount a campaign against EU membership and that I gave the impression I have just left the GWU.

Let me start on the last point, since it is far from the truth. In fact, during my address to the public, I had invited those members of the GWU national council who are in favour of joining the EU to wake up and do something tangible similar to what the lamented Joe Attard Kingswell and myself had tried to do to avoid the fusion between the Labour regime and the GWU, 27 years ago. I may add that I have written several times in this and other papers and also spoke on various radio stations on what happened to me as secretary of the GWU's metal section on July 21, 1977 when I was attacked by Labour thugs in the union's offices.

Referring to the reports commissioned by the union itself, Mr Zarb says some of these cite instances where employees in certain sectors of the economy may be hit negatively were we to join Europe and, therefore, his union has the right and duty to inform its members of this situation. I cannot agree more with Mr Zarb on this argument. However, he must agree with me that it will not be fair on his own members to feed them the negative points while he refrains from informing them of the positive aspects which greatly outweigh the negative ones.

This is the reason why those who have seen the reports, like Peppi Azzopardi, and those who had obtained copies of them, like myself (I have 10 different ones), insist that the union is morally - and I venture to say legally - obliged to publish the reports. This so that, after reading the whole report/s and weighing the negative/positive points, the union members would be able to form a balanced and unbiased opinion.

When he spoke on the vote taken by the GWU delegates at a general conference, Mr Zarb failed to mention what I said during the Sliema meeting. Indeed, I said that the union commissioned a joint report from two phantom writers - once their names have never been made public - and presented their negative report to the delegates, whilst the other reports were not even explained. This was most unfair.

In addition, at the conference, delegates were asked to take a vote by a "show of hands" when such an important and unique decision should have been taken by a secret vote!

Let me be blunt as I usually am. Mr Zarb says he is prepared to take an affidavit that the Labour Party (do we have a truly Labour Party?) did not put pressure on the union to mount a campaign against EU membership. However, I am more than convinced that had Alfred Sant declared his party in favour of joining Europe, those within the GWU who are against Malta joining Europe would be in the front line waving the European flag.

Finally, as stated in the opening of this article, the GWU failed to answer my accusations that it had betrayed the Maltese workers in general and its own members in particular, when, among other things:

¤ it accepted to be fused with the then Mintoff Party - as usual by a "show of hands" by delegates during a conference attended, among others, by a number of thugs;

¤ lost the jobs of Phoenicia and Verdala hotels employees;

¤ just like the Labour Party, it came out strongly against liberalisation and the introduction of the VAT taxation system;

¤ instead of supporting other trade unions, it supported the Mintoff, Mifsud Bonnici and Sant socialist governments in 1977, 1984 and 1996 and

¤ it failed to even whisper a word when recently the MLP swallowed the VAT taxation system, despite the fact that in 1995 the GWU had ordered a general strike against VAT.

When Mr Zarb or the GWU admit the wrongdoing and apologise to the Maltese workers, including the union's own members, then and only then will I start believing they have really "defused" themselves from the Labour Party and are on the way to have the glorious union the GWU used to be between the years 1943 - 1977.

Mr Seychell served as a council member of the GWU from 1967 to 1977.