Tony Zarb is willing to meet the General Workers’ Union former legal advisor and now Labour leadership aspirant George Abela, in what could turn out to be a historic meeting, nine years after Abela fell out with the union’s leadership.
“We are ready to meet any of the MLP leadership contenders who request to meet us to discuss their vision for the Malta Labour Party,” union secretary-general Tony Zarb told MaltaToday when asked whether the union will be meeting Abela and Evarist Bartolo, after holding meetings with contenders Marie Louise Coleiro-Preca, Joseph Muscat and Michael Falzon.
Zarb would not confirm whether a meeting with George Abela had already been scheduled. Abela could not be contacted at the time of going to print.
Abela’s relationship with the GWU survived his fallout with the MLP when he resigned his post of deputy leader in 1998, after objecting to an early election. In August 1999, he was one of the union officials who sat in front of a police coach transporting a number of workers arrested during industrial action at Malta International Airport.
Just a few months later, he resigned from the union, in disagreement with the GWU’s handling of the court case filed by the government against the union.
Relations deteriorated further in 2007, when GWU port workers appointed George Abela as their legal representative in discussions with the government on port reform. A few months later, the majority of the port workers left the GWU to form the Malta Dockers Union, depriving the GWU of its strategic power in the ports.
Abela also defended former union stalwart Josephine Attard Sultana in the industrial tribunal after her dismissal from the union.
Upon returning to the fray with his bid for the Labour leadership, Abela immediately expressed his wish for a reconciliation with the GWU. In his first public meeting in Cospicua in April, Abela announced the reconciliation process had indeed started.
The following Sunday however, GWU deputy secretary-general Gejtu Mercieca wrote in it-Torca, that no reconciliation was possible unless any harm done to the union in the past was remedied – never referring however to Abela by name.
“As leaders of the union we will be the first to forget, as if nothing ever happened, but we will only do this if whoever was involved shows he really means it by repairing the damage done with his backing of this organisation,” Mercieca wrote, referring to “those who were part or are still part of the organisation” who caused havoc in the union whenever it “refused to play their game.”

jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt