Malta Shipyards staff threaten to abandon GWU

GWU secretary general Tony Zarb yesterday washed his hands of the issue of whether foremen and supervisors at Malta Shipyards could ever be paid for overtime again.

In all, 125 foremen and supervisors, members of the GWU's Metal Workers Section, have signed a petition warning they would join the Union Haddiema Maghqudin or form a house union unless the GWU heeded their demand for overtime pay - which they used to enjoy until the signing of a collective agreement for shipyard workers in 2003.

A number of foremen and supervisors who spoke to The Sunday Times said they had sent a letter to Mr Zarb on June 3 asking him to intervene and informing him that unless something was done "within three weeks", they would have no alternative but to seek protection of other unions.

Contacted yesterday, and asked what the GWU would be doing about the foremen's claims, Mr Zarb said the question should be referred to the section secretary, Charles Agius.

When contacted and faced with the same question, all Mr Agius said: "I have already said what the union's position is about the subject and I have nothing to add."

Last week, Mr Agius had told The Times he intended to continue to hold talks and negotiate to improve the situation of foremen and supervisors, even after Friday's agreement was signed.

But the agreement signed on Friday makes it clear that both the union and management were agreeing that there were no more outstanding issues.

Those who spoke to The Sunday Times yesterday said the overtime issue was very important for them and a considerable number of them had lost a lot of money because with the agreements signed they have lost overtime.

"In spite of various other fringe benefits, such as performance-related pay and other additional payments, we are receiving, our take home pay has shrunk considerably," they said.

The supervisors recalled that, following the signing of the collective agreement, there was a very vocal internal debate within the Shipyard Workers Section and this led to the removal of Alfred Cassar from the post of section secretary.

"In a letter sent to Mr Cassar on December 9, 2003, five members of the executive committee had resigned from the committee because 'of the negative way the collective agreement had effected them'.

"Before he was replaced, we had been verbally promised a number of things and overtime was one of the issues that we were insisting about. Mr Cassar's post was then taken up by Charles Agius," they said.

The foremen and supervisors complained they had not been consulted before the collective agreement was signed in 2003 and they were not even informed that Friday's agreement would be signed.

"Very often, were it not for The Times, we would never get to know about issues that really concern us," they said.

The agreement signed on Friday was not a renegotiation of the original collective agreement. It merely clarified certain issues and spelt out how flexibility and other concepts would be implemented.