Trade unions' dispute on ETUC letter hots up

The rift between the Union Haddiema Maghqudin and the General Workers' Union grew deeper yesterday after the general secretary of the former, Gejtu Vella, insisted he had no intention of making a public apology for revealing the contents of a letter sent by the European Trade Union Confederation to the GWU about support for European Union enlargement.

On the contrary, Mr Vella called upon the GWU to apologise for what he described as its incessant attempts to deny workers the benefit of EU membership.

The ETUC reaffirmed its stand for EU enlargement after the GWU's general secretary, Tony Zarb, took exception to the confederation's unequivocal stance on the Nice Treaty.

The GWU suspended its relations with the Confederation of Trade Unions and the UHM, claiming that a letter addressed to it and sent by mistake to the CMTU was leaked to The Times and in-Nazzjon.

The GWU accused the CMTU of trying to evade responsibility for the leak and said that until the confederation and the UHM, particularly Mr Vella, made a public apology for their "very irresponsible behaviour", relations would remain suspended.

When contacted, Mr Vella was clearly unrepentant and launched a broadside against the GWU.

"The apology should be made by those who betrayed workers along the years.

"The apology should come from that union which for years was in cahoots with a political party.

"The apology should be made by those who ordered a national strike when VAT was introduced and yet remained dormant when it was replaced by a senseless tax.

"The apology should be made by that union which commissioned a series of reports on EU membership but refused to publish their conclusions simply because they did not fit its policy."

He criticised the GWU for adopting what he termed as an inactive and often damaging role rather than lobby the EU to obtain the best package for workers.

"The EU provides opportunities for workers and their families and would shift us away from the mediocrity of certain politicians," Mr Vella argued.

Rather than demand an apology, Mr Vella said the GWU should be ashamed of the contents of the letter by the ETUC, an organisation set up in 1973 to provide a trade union counterbalance to the economic forces of European integration.

Mr Vella confirmed he had received a copy of the letter, but not from the CMTU, as the GWU had claimed.

"What I did was to comment on the letter because I believed its contents should have been made public, unlike the GWU's reports on the EU".

No trade union, he stressed, should hide anything from its members.