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The Nationalists’ ersatz labour agenda has found a voice in Ian Spiteri Bailey, the UHM lawyer who turned down a nomination for magistrate and instead decided to run for the EP elections.  Ian Spiteri Bailey, 35, turned down a cushy job as magistrate to run for the European Parliamentary elections. For the past ten years, his work as a lawyer introduced him to the world of employment and industrial relations, a factor characterised by his role as legal counsel to the Union Haddiema Maqghudin.
His involvement with the UHM meant relinquishing all official party links. He had previously been elected on the PN ticket in the first local council elections for Birkirkara. “Since UHM is an apolitical organisation, I had to stop my involvement in politics. When it came to the EU referendum, I gave my contribution to the ‘yes’ vote through my contribution in UHM. The next step was to think where I could give my best contribution, and that came with my candidature for the European Parliament.”
Spiteri Bailey laments the lack of information about the European Parliament elections.
Touring around with the rest of the PN clan, his experience is that people don’t really know what they are voting for.
“It is important for them to know what the European Parliament is all about. Some people still think that the EP is somewhere where domestic laws are enacted, which is not the case. I think it is important for the political parties to inform people as to what the EP is all about. In the EP every MEP has to lobby to safeguard the interests of one’s country, while working on one’s party’s and political grouping’s manifesto for the next five years.
“And people should know what they are voting for, through the manifesto of their political party grouping. It is not simply voting red, blue or green, but voting for the programme that is best for your country.”
Spiteri Bailey’s involvement in the world of labour and employment makes him an important figure to watch. His involvement with UHM and his own brand of workerism should make him somewhat more critical or rather objective about government’s performance at a time when unemployment in Malta is very high.
“I would not say there is a crisis,” Spiteri Bailey says about the current economic situation in Malta. “But there are problems. What we have faced over the past twelve months is not a European Union issue, irrespective of whether we would have joined or not, and whether there would have been either a Labour or Nationalist government in power. The problem is competitiveness and what is going on away from our shores and away from the EU. What is happening there is affecting us. It has affected all Europe and us too. We cannot remain isolated and we have to see things in terms of what is happening away from our shores.
“On the bright side of things, the EU has a strategy and a concrete plan of action to become the strongest continent in the world, politically and economically. Being part of this EU means that we can actually participate in this process, and part of this process is creating jobs. Government plans to create 30,000 by 2010. It will not be able to do that alone, but I am sure that within the employment strategy of the EU we can do that, because the Union plans to create 5 million jobs by 2010.”
A supporter of maintaining the status quo in the EU’s working-time directive, when political groups such as the Socialists want to see that workers get to work no longer than eight hours in overtime, Spiteri Bailey believes in the right for workers to choose.
“The law as it stands today gives the right to the worker to choose whether he should work any longer than eight hours overtime or not. What we are proposing is that the right to choose remains. We are against having a law imposing on a worker to work a maximum of eight hours overtime.”
According to Spiteri Bailey, curtailing the right to work more than eight hours overtime does not aid a process in which more unemployed workers can find part-time employment.
“It will not solve the problem. In principle, should we give the right to choose to the worker or not? That is the first choice we have to make. Secondly, one of the main arguments forwarded by the Socialists is that the reason to allow not more than eight hours of overtime is for their health and safety. That is completely unfounded because the law itself, as it is today, obliges the employer to keep records of all overtime for health and safety reasons.
“Your argument that unemployed workers can take up the extra hours not worked has to take into consideration that the number of part-timers has risen considerably irrespective of there being the opt-out clause. I don’t think that will be the issue. We want to create more opportunities without restricting the worker’s right to choose. We are going through a phase in Maltese society where women are entering employment through part-time work and that allows them time to take care of their family. There are also women graduates with families who need part-time to continue their careers, and women who need part-time work to supplement household incomes. Women play an important role in the labour market, and this is an issue which has to evolve based on safeguarding the value of the family.”
Spiteri Bailey, a father of two, has already pronounced his Catholic principles in his general council acceptance speech. His principles, and the value he gives to family (he is fond of having his family’s picture on his website) are important factors in his politics. Of course he is aware of the counter-currents he is liable to face in the European Parliament, even form within his own political grouping, the EPP.
“I will vote in the way my personal principles guide me. If we take the example of divorce, which is not in the EU’s competence, nobody has ever convinced me that divorce solves matrimonial values.
“I would not vote for divorce. The same goes for abortion. I would vote against. Even if this meant voting against my own grouping. I would not succumb to their thoughts simply because they are in the majority. I might be in a minority but I am going to try and convince them. That is my test of values.
“It could very well mean that the EU will bring a difference in the culture of how Maltese politicians can think and propose their agenda. The EU gives us a wider perspective of things, at times whether we like or not. This is positive, because it will help us change certain aspects of our culture. The EU will give us a platform to bring about these changes, not only because we have to do it, but also because it will give us a wider dimension on how to work with minorities.”
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