The social pact

Ever thought an agreement would be reached?

Looking at these past months and with a closer eye to these past few weeks I tend to think about the long hours social partners have spent in exhausting meetings and on the drawing board trying their outmost to put forward a number of measures to ensure our economy is given a boost.

The UHM, a front runner of innovative ideas on how industrial relations should be dealt with, had and will continue to have a clear agenda considering with utmost importance the well-being of workers, their families and pensioners. It is still convinced that a national agreement would have had a positive impact on our economy and most importantly our labour market.

Not even one social partner questions that we lack competitiveness and each and every union in our country sees the need to regenerate our economy. So a question raised is why did one particular organisation halt a process of negotiations which was ready to flourish? Is this unbelievable or are we used to this type of cartoonish and fantastic mishaps which cause our nation, now a member of the greatest economic bloc, the EU, to look and feel ludicrous in the eyes of all other nations? Foreign investors will continue to have an awkward image of this tiny island and its people and thinking out loud I guess they have every right to do so.

Having a closer look at the proposals put forward in the form of a social pact, one portrays an equilibrium that was reached between all social partners, meaning the government, unions and employers. A number of measures included a cut of two days in annual leave for the next four years instead of the number of leave days we will be losing in all coming years because of the budget measures set by the government to cancel all extra days given for public holidays which fall on a weekend - this means 15 days for the next four years!

The government was ready to freeze income tax and VAT rates if an agreement was ever reached! Employers would have had to contribute at least Lm1.2 million which would have gone into a fund to train employees, labour market research and innovation, a number of measures to control tax evaders and the abuse of social benefits, all these throughout the next four years.

Honestly, one tends to ask: But if this is all so, why was a union who states that it defends our workers against all this?

What ideas did this particular union have when it decided to stop negotiations, when an agreement was nearer than ever before?

I leave these questions for you to answer as they have a very practical and obvious reply. My own question is: Should this continue? Is anyone helping our younger society, the citizens of tomorrow to change the way politics rule the way we think and act?

If this negative trend continues we have no way out and our economy will continue to perish; this is unjust. Should my life, a young worker starting my career, a family, be affected in a negative way throughout my whole existence? Together we should look into each others' eyes and see the truth and the future that lies ahead of us. Let the generations to come think and act differently if we really want our country to be among the more civilised and stable ones.

Furthermore, I would like to thank all my colleagues who were involved in these long and tough negotiations for their time and effort. Special thanks go to the UHM and CMTU, who together with other unions in our country, tried their utmost to create a sense of unity and together worked to create a social pact which will remain the most proper antidote for our economy's illness. The UHM Youths in particular remembers Alfred Buhagiar, the late president of the CMTU, who was a guiding light for all youths throughout his years as a teacher and later within the trade union movement. He served all and was an inspirational leader young people should look up to as an exemplary figure. May he rest in peace.