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News • April 4 2004

Changes to Air Malta work practices shelved for nine years

Kurt Sansone

A number of changes in work practices recommended by an independent report which could have seen an estimated yearly saving of Lm677,000 in Air Malta’s operating costs, were never implemented to the detriment of the airline’s bottom line. The report, commissioned by Air Malta in 1995, was seen by MaltaToday. If the recommendations had been heeded, to date the estimated savings in one section of the airline alone would have totalled around Lm6 million.
The independent report, referred to as the Saunders Report after its author, was a compromise solution reached by the Air Malta management with the GWU on ways and means to change a number of work practices for ground handling and ramp operation staff.

In the Air Malta collective agreement signed two years earlier it was noted that working practices had to be more flexible for the airline to remain efficient and maintain healthy financial results.
In the summer of 1995 Air Malta, then under the chairmanship of Joseph N. Tabone, had decided to go ahead and amend the work practices. Agreement was reached with the GWU to engage a foreign independent expert to evaluate the work practices adopted by ground handling and ramp operation staff and recommend changes.
The report was damning on a number of rigid work practices that saw gangs of six and sometimes seven people deployed on ramp operations irrespective of the workload and type of plane at hand.
Saunders wrote: “The current practice of utilising staff in groups of 6 prevents effective staff utilisation providing inadequate resources on some turnarounds and excess staff on others.” He also observed that with six staff members allocated to each aircraft there was “significant downtime on a number of occasions.”
On the issue of bag offloading, Saunders observed that the staff did not provide regular assistance to the bag make-up team and did not work at aircraft side when required.
“The staffing of the make-up area experienced significant peaks which were not supported by deployment of staff from other areas,” Saunders noted.
Similar comments were made on other areas of operation such as the provision of cleaning and dressing services.
The general tone of the recommendations made by Saunders was to create smaller teams with the flexibility of engaging more staff to work on particular aircraft if the job necessitated so. This also meant a change in shift and roster structures and less rigid job descriptions, which were preventing employees from doing other jobs not strictly in their remit.
The report recommendations, which according to an Investments Ministry official could have saved the airline an estimated Lm6 million to date, were never implemented.
The GWU transport section at the time headed by current Secretary General Tony Zarb, opposed the implementation of the report and when management, put its foot down industrial action ensued. The management had threatened not to proceed with the increments due in April 1996 as agreed in the 1994 collective agreement.
Eventually, government intervened and the increments were given on condition that the implementation of the Saunders Report was taken up by the industrial tribunal. Management and the GWU agreed to abide by any decision handed down by the tribunal.
In August 1996 the Industrial Tribunal decreed that management was correct and thus the ground was laid for the implementation of the Saunders Report.
Two months later the Labour Party won the general election and Louis Grech was appointed chairman. The Saunders Report was shelved and never implemented, not even after the 1998 election that returned a Nationalist administration.
Today, the same work practices identified in 1995 as being inefficient are once again under the spotlight, along with others in different sections of the airline, the difference being Air Malta is now in a much worse shape necessitating urgent action to prevent the national carrier from going under.

kurt@newsworksltd.com

 

 





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