GWU, Farsons in day of confrontation

Simonds Farsons Cisk and the General Workers` Union yesterday held a conciliation meeting at which they agreed to reopen their stalled negotiations today over a revision of the collective agreement, which is the subject of a dispute.

The meeting followed a sit-in strike by brewery workers which disrupted operations, and a subsequent lockout of workers by the company.

The sit-in was still on last night and the talks, at a further conciliation meeting, are expected to be held amid continued industrial action. The secretary of the union`s chemical and general workers` section, Gejtu Mercieca, said last night that the directives would be lifted only when agreement on the revision is reached.

Yesterday`s meeting was held under the chairmanship of industrial relations director Frank Pullicino, after a day of tit-for-tat actions by union and company.

It kicked off with the union ordering partial action: a stoppage by three syrup room employees and four loading foremen on the morning shift.

The union said the seven striking employees were immediately "suspended" by the management.

This spurred the union to issue directives to all the workers on the morning shift to stage a sit-in strike in solidarity with their "suspended" colleagues, stopping the brewery operations.

When the second shift reported for work at 2 p.m., the management stopped them entering, ordering a lockout of the workers.

In retaliation, the union ordered all its members to indefinitely boycott Farsons products with immediate effect as a show of solidarity with Farsons employees.

The first shift continued with its sit-in strike, while the second shift remained outside until Mr Mercieca ordered them all to enter, occupy the factory and continue the sit-in strike.

The union said Farsons employees had been "sent away from work" because seven of them were engaged in industrial action.

The workers were prepared to spend the entire night at the brewery if necessary, Mr Mercieca said.

Last night, however, there were conflicting versions over how many workers were sitting in.

A Farsons source put the number at 120, from the morning shift only, as the lockout was still in place. Mr Mercieca, when asked, could not say how many they were but said they included workers from the morning, afternoon and night shifts.

Speaking to the Farsons employees at the factory earlier, general secretary Tony Zarb accused the company management of "abuse and moving too fast", giving the union no choice but to react.

He said the union had been compelled to resort to action and step it up by the management`s "rough" reaction to the partial strike by seven employees.

Mr Zarb condemned what he said was a Farsons Group attempt yesterday to pit the unions against one other by mentioning in a statement that negotiations with the Union Haddiema Maghqudin over a collective agreement for non-industrial workers had ended in agreement and that the lockout did not affect UHM members.

The union was prepared to have serious discussions and hoped the issue would be resolved as soon as possible, Mr Zarb said. He appealed to the group chief executive Louis Farrugia to assume his responsibilities and intervene to resolve the matter.

In a statement, Farsons said they resorted to lockout after the union had ordered a sit-in strike.

It denied it had suspended the seven employees, as claimed by the union.

According to Farsons, the union immediately stepped up its action to include all the workers who were at their place of work at the time, around 200.

The sit-in meant that even the process of beer pasteurisation, which was taking place at the time, was stopped and could have resulted in damaging the product.

In these circumstances, the company had no option but to declare a lockout of industrial workers from 12.45 p.m., it said.

On May 13, the company wrote to the social policy minister requesting his intervention for the dispute to be taken before an industrial tribunal.