The Nationalist Party has denounced what it described as “bullying tactics” on Air Malta employees as a result of the government’s lack of vision and “amateurish planning” on the future of the airline.

Workers who are to be moved out of the airline are being presented with "take-it-or-leave-it offers", PN MPs Ivan Castillo and Jerome Caruana Cilia said  at a press conference on Wednesday.

They said that the government’s lack of a strategy for Air Malta is piling misery onto its workers, who still do not know where they will be moved to, once their employment with the airline comes to an end on August 12.

When Finance Minister Clyde Caruana announced in January that the government was halving the workforce in a bid to save the national airline, he made it clear no employees would become redundant.

They would be recruited by government entities enjoying the same wages and conditions they had at Air Malta, he pledged.

But, several months on and with just two weeks to go to the deadline agreed with the GWU to give alternative jobs to 571 workers, only a small percentage of them have settled into new jobs.

“There’s a disaster at Air Malta which is threatening the existence of the national airline and its workers are in crisis, living in uncertainty. It is evident that workers were taken for a ride by the government and by the Finance Minister prior to the election,” Castillo said.

He questioned how the airline was going to lose a good chunk of its workers in the middle of August, at the peak of the tourism season, when the airline is busiest.

He said that although an August 12 deadline has been set in contracts the government signed with trade unions representing employees, a roster has already been prepared for after that date and it covers also those workers who are meant to be leaving.

He said there were stories of workers being given a take-it-or-leave-it option. “These are bullying tactics and it’s not the first time we’ve seen the Finance Minister resorting to this,” he said.

Castillo also questioned the government’s plans for ground handling operations.

A local company was given responsibility for that. 

Castillo said there is no way the government can match the salaries and there is also a possibility that it goes against its own electoral promise of equal pay for work of equal value.

“Government tried selling a fantasy to the workers before the election but it was nothing short of a haphazard restructuring,” he said.

Caruana Cilia said this “mess” that the airline was in was the result of “amateurish planning” and a lack of a strategy.

He said the government had also lost control of its finances and was now asking ministries and government entities to save €200 million in budgetary costs.

He went through a list of stories published by various portals about what he described as a waste of money, with direct orders being splashed out and millions being spent when Air Malta employees were left high and dry.

“Bullies should not be in politics,” he said as he promised that the PN will continue being there to protect workers and listen to their problems.