Shipyard, GWU settle all outstanding issues

The Malta Shipyards and the General Workers' Union yesterday signed an agreement that clarifies a number of issues left open to interpretation when the collective agreement for shipyard workers was signed in November 2003.

The agreement was signed by Malta Shipyards chairman John Cassar White and chief executive Chris Bell and by Paul Bugeja, Charles Agius, Charles Vella and Karmenu Vella, union officials representing workers and professional staff at the shipyards.

Industry sources stressed the agreement was not a re-negotiation of the original agreement and both parties declared "there are no other outstanding issues regarding the collective agreement or otherwise".

The agreement signed yesterday clarifies how the concept of flexibility and multi-skilled workers will work and quantifies how much the company will be paying. Workers now have to be fully flexible and employees may be ordered to perform work that is not in their main line of duty. The company will pay Lm65,000 annually for this and the fund is managed by the GWU.

As far as general foremen and supervisors are concerned, the agreement reaffirms they are non-overtime grades. In the collective agreement they had been granted a Lm1,000 increase in their salaries in the light of this. Those who work more than 208 hours over a period of a year will be compensated through a performance-related pay mechanism. But the performance-related pay will be implemented according to a formula agreed in the collective agreement and the fund will depend on the ratio of labour costs and revenue.

The agreement also speaks of a regrading exercise that will be conducted by November. When Malta Drydocks and Malta Shipbuilding were closed down and the Malta Shipyards Company set up, various grades were amalgamated and workers were put on the lowest rungs of each grade.

The sources said that with the exercise, it was not expected that anyone would be downgraded but neither would everyone be promoted to the next rung.

"It is only those who are fit to step up to the higher rung who will make it and the arrears will be paid as from last January," the sources added.

Another significant development is that the union will have a new office assigned to it by the management and that the union undertook to inform employees they can only go to the union office during non-working hours.

In order to avoid any misinterpretation, the agreement was signed in both the Maltese and English versions.

Earlier this month, 125 foremen and supervisors, members of the GWU's metal workers section, had signed a petition warning they would join Union Haddiema Maghqudin or form a house union unless the GWU heeded their demand for them to again start receiving payment for overtime.

It is not yet known what the position of these foremen is after the agreement was signed.

The petition was sent to the Malta Shipyards' human resources manager Anthony Restall and the GWU shipyard workers section secretary Charles Agius. They also wrote to GWU secretary general Tony Zarb to inform him about their intentions of "finding someone else to represent them" unless their claims were heeded.

Investments Minister Austin Gatt last week ruled out payment for overtime for supervisors and foremen.

"Overtime is not, was not and will not feature in any talks related to foremen and supervisors," he had told The Times.