Unlicensed temporary employment agencies could be barred from bidding for public contracts or applying to bring third-country nationals to Malta, should regulations currently being discussed become law.
Parliamentary secretary for social dialogue Andy Ellul said on Monday that talks are underway to regulate so-called temping agencies, which provide contract workers to local companies.
The legislation would impact thousands of local workers that include cleaners, security guards, nurses and some catering employees.
“The main goal of these discussions is for them to lead to a set of rules that oblige these agencies to work within a regulatory framework,” Ellul said.
“Those that aren’t licensed will not be allowed to participate in public tenders and neither will they be allowed to bring in third-country nationals.”
Reforming wage regulation orders
Ellul also announced that the secretariat will be commissioning a study that will lead to reform in a number of wage regulation orders, which are various pieces of legislation that regulate employment conditions such as wages, leave and overtime.
A number of these orders, Ellul said, are out of date, while others create discriminatory conditions among different sectors of workers.
An order regulating construction workers, for example, says that workers are only entitled to sick leave after a year, while in other sectors workers get that entitlement after six months.
“These revisions will be undertaken to make the positions of workers and employers better and to give all parties legal certainty,” he said.
More than 1,000 DIER investigations this year
Ellul gave an update on the work carried out by the department for industrial and employment relations, with DIER taking on 1,030 investigations between January and October this year.
Of these, 70 have led to further action in the courts, 386 were solved by DIER and 483 investigations are still ongoing. Five cases had to be dropped because they were time-barred, 20 were withdrawn by DIER while 50 were closed on the claimant’s request. Nine investigations had to be closed due to a lack of information, while six cases are relying on other investigations which are still in progress.
In the first 10 months of the year, DIER carried out 372 inspections and interviewed 489 employees which lead to the discovery of 145 potential irregularities.
When it comes to customer support, employees for the two DIER helplines answered 24,540 phone calls, replied to 9,618 emails and helped 1949 clients who walked in with a query or to open a case.
What are the major investigation topics?
Of all the queries and cases handled by DIER, wages were the most prominent with 575 cases, followed by bonuses and weekly allowances at 431 cases and vacation leave at 446 cases.
“As a government, we are determined to continue strengthening workers’ rights and help employers remain competitive,” Ellul said.
“We want to help employers cultivate more productive employees, this can only be done by strengthening workers’ rights.”