When private sector workers lose their jobs because of their employers’ restructuring plans, they get the terminal benefits defined in their employment agreement. The value of these benefits is typically linked to the years of service of the employee that faces redundancy.
In the public sector, things are done differently, even though government-owned commercial companies like Air Malta pay salaries that are above market rates in some cases.
Over the last 20 years, different administrations introduced workers’ redeployment schemes for bankrupt, publicly owned commercial entities. Malta Shipyards and, now, Air Malta introduced schemes to offload their excess labour on to the public sector, with taxpayers having to finance expensive redeployment schemes.
Nothing about the management of Air Malta is ever transparent. Political patronage has meant that the national airline not only had to absorb excess labour to cater for politicians’ demands but also failed to publish its accounts on time.
Last January, Finance Minister Clyde Caruana seemed to take a different approach to addressing Air Malta’s endemic problems. He announced that half of Air Malta’s staff were to be redeployed in the public sector with the same conditions of work they enjoyed with the airline. Times of Malta has revealed that Air Malta workers’ salaries make it hard to redeploy them in the public sector. In fact, by the latest accounts, the redeployment exercise is going badly, barely scratching the surface of the airline employees needed to make the move out of Air Malta.
The Malta Employers’ Association described it as “unbelievable” that the government had promised Air Malta’s employees they would retain their working conditions when redeployed to government departments and entities. The General Workers’ Union, which represents many of the airline’s employees, sees nothing wrong with this, with general secretary Josef Bugeja arguing that “the union has no intention of negotiating on this (redeployment agreement)”.
The flawed redeployment schemes of both Malta Shipyards and Air Malta are no more than populist measures to buy industrial peace at a very high cost to taxpayers, the Maltese economy and social justice.
Undoubtedly, every government has an obligation to help redundant workers find alternative employment that respects their dignity. However, when skilled redundant tradesmen from Malta Shipyards and qualified engineers and pilots from Air Malta were given jobs below their level of experience and qualifications, valuable human resources were underutilised and taxpayers’ money was squandered.
The dynamics of the labour market were also disrupted as the private sector was deprived of the opportunity to redeploy redundant workers from the public sector in productive jobs.
Those who fret about the growing inequalities in our society are right in arguing that there are two classes of workers in the country, with one type enjoying privileges denied to the underclass of non-unionised workers.
Trade unions representing some workers in the public sector still have disproportionate clout when negotiating working conditions. Still, workers in the private sector, especially those employed with precarious work conditions, rarely feature on policymakers’ radars.
Nothing seems to have changed in how Air Malta was managed last year. The airline’s financial performance remains obscure despite legal obligations to publish accounts. The state of play in negotiations with the competition authorities in Brussels on the amount of state support the airline can get remains a mystery.
The government’s plans to protect taxpayers’ interests in implementing the redeployment schemes for redundant workers remain riddled with avoidable costs.
It is time for the government to lift the veil that shrouds the current management of Air Malta.