Port workers insist on posts on GWU committees

The General Workers Union port workers' shop steward, Joe Saliba (known as in-Nusu), has threatened to call for an investigation and file an appeal with the union's administration unless he and fellow union members are given the posts they contested within the union's committees.

Mr Saliba claims that they were recently elbowed out of these committees.

Sources said Mr Saliba has had meetings with the union administration, including president Salvu Sammut and secretary general Tony Zarb, and asked to be appointed to the union's national council.

He also requested that candidates who had not been elected to the union's maritime and aviation section executive committee be appointed to it. If his appeal is successful, he can seek to annul the elections held at a recent general conference of his section.

The elections took place in mid-May, when Mr Saliba had failed to get elected section president and did not manage to secure a seat on the union's council either.

The union's council, which meets at least once every two months, manages the day-to-day policies and running of the union and moves items before the general conference.

Each section can appoint a number of members to the union's council, depending on the number of members it has.

The port workers, who number around 400, lost one of the three seats their section had on the 15-man executive committee.

Mr Saliba and another representative of the port workers were elected to the section's executive committee but, the sources said, the port workers felt there were moves to elbow them out, as Mr Saliba was known to be a close friend of Manwel Micallef, the GWU's deputy secretary general, who was the previous secretary of the Ports and Transport Workers section.

According to the union's statute, each section appoints a delegate for every 41 members. It then has a right to a delegate for every 50 members. However, places of work with between seven and 20 members also have the right to appoint a delegate.

Section secretaries are given about 10 extra delegates and the practice is that these are drawn from those places of work where there are few members, so that these too would have representation.

There are 400 port workers but they only have seven delegates representing them. In contrast, the 140 members from Cargo Handling have six delegates instead of two or three and the 200 members at Malta International Airport have six delegates instead of four.

Internal problems with the union are also emerging on other fronts.

Roberto Cristiano, the union's secretary for manufacturing and small enterprises, has also not been reporting for work for almost two weeks. Helen Mallia, the union's vice-president, is carrying out his duties on a part-time basis. Sources said Mr Cristiano was very upset by comments made by Mr Zarb in l-orizzont on May 21.

Among other things, Mr Zarb implied that some people in the union tended to side with "the other side of the table" and that these should go on the other side (with employers).

Sources said Mr Cristiano felt irked by comments Mr Zarb made about redundancies, as most of these happened in his section. The sources said that when there were problems and companies were about to close down, it was pointless to resort to industrial action.

Whenever such a situation arose, Mr Cristiano was one of those who engaged in discussions with Government and the Employment and Training Corporation to find the employees alternative jobs within a short time, and he was very successful at it, sources said.

This is not the first time that Mr Zarb and Mr Cristiano did not see eye to eye on certain issues.

Contacted for his comments, after listening to a number of questions, Mr Zarb said "it has been decided that journalists henceforth have to send questions in writing".

A fax and an e-mail with 13 questions were sent to Mr Zarb at lunch- time yesterday, but no reply was received by the time we went to print.