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Kurt Sansone
With Government still unsure of how it is going to implement the budget measure to stop public holidays falling on a weekend being added on to vacation leave entitlement, it is becoming increasingly clear that the only legally unchallengeable option is to remove a number of public holidays altogether.
The measure as announced in the budget came in for some friendly fire this week in Parliament when former finance minister John Dalli said that it would have been better if Government had removed a number of public holidays rather than propose a half-baked measure open to legal challenges by the unions.
Referring to the measures in the budget to stimulate productivity, Dalli said it was necessary for the country to cut down on the number of unproductive days so as to become more competitive.
Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi has already said he intends removing Clause 17 of the Industrial Relations Act and amend the law further to make the measure applicable to all employees even those currently enjoying all public holidays by collective agreements that supersede the law. This stand has however created what many describe as an unlikely alliance between the GWU and the UHM.
Both unions have said that Government will be inviting serious trouble if it enforced the measure on employees who are covered by legally binding collective agreements. Speaking to MaltaToday last Sunday, UHM legal advisor Ian Spiteri Bailey said Government would be taken to court both in Malta and abroad if it went ahead with the measure as planned.
With Parliamentary Secretary Tonio Fenech telling this newspaper that Government was still studying ways and means of how best to implement the budget measure and make it effective it is clear that the budget measure was not well thought through and there seem to be few options available on the table.
If Government decides to reduce the number of public holidays it will not be open to legal challenges from the unions, but it will certainly have its ear pulled hard from church quarters. With little if any chance of reaching an agreement with the Opposition on reducing the number of national holidays, the only route left is to reduce the number of religious public holidays.
Such a move would open the Nationalist government to serious criticism after historically having been the party to reinstate public holidays that were removed by the Mintoff-led Labour administration in the seventies and eighties.
kurt@newsworksltd.com
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