Updated 5.08pm with IĠM statement
Union Print has suspended the editor-in-chief of its newspapers L-Orizzont and It-Torċa, Victor Vella.
Vella was suspended late last month after he refused to stop publishing stories about workers' rights, migration and social injustices, according to sources close to that newsroom. His suspension was revealed by Newsbook on Sunday evening.
He will now face disciplinary proceedings and risks being sacked from the post after a career of 27 years in journalism.
Union Print is owned by the General Workers Union and union president Victor Carachi is listed as the publisher's sole director. But a GWU spokesperson denied that Vella’s suspension had any link to the newspapers' editorial line and described it as a "purely administrative matter".
The GWU spokesperson said the union would be assisting Vella in his disciplinary proceedings with Union Print, its own subsidiary.
Despite the GWU denial, sources close to the two newspapers told Times of Malta that union top dogs were unhappy with Vella's editorial policy on social issues, because it put the government in a bad light.
Over the past months, both L-Orizzont and it-Torċa ran stories about people working on low salaries and in precarious conditions, people struggling to cope with the rising cost of living, people facing housing difficulties, migration and a report on the surge in food prices in supermarkets.
"After the newspapers were out, the newsroom would start to get calls from above, and be pressured to stop publishing such stories," the sources said.
"Migration was one of their biggest bones of contention."
It is understood the pressure from the union administration on the newsroom had been going on for months.
Contacted for a reaction, Vella declined to comment pending disciplinary proceedings.
The Institute of Maltese Journalists said it was concerned by the decision and said it appeared that Vella's suspension was linked to editorial decisions he took, rather than "administrative issues" as the GWU was claiming.
"While a company has the right to appoint an editor it considers best placed to advance its beliefs, it does not appear that Vella departed from the principles that underpin the Union Print," the journalists' lobby said.
PEN Malta said it was shocking to see a union take such action against one of its own, "nevermind its populist, immoral stand on racism, immigrants, precarious jobs and rising poverty".