MLP secretary general Jason Micallef has told MaltaToday that former Lorry Sant henchman Ronnie Pellegrini is not a ‘Labour employee’, as stated in last Sunday’s newspaper.
Micallef also denied that Pellegrini was canvassing for him. But Labour insiders told MaltaToday that this is blatantly untrue.
Pellegrini’s position is ostensibly an unofficial secondment from his actual employers, the General Workers’ Union (GWU). Pellegrini is never seen at the GWU, but always present at the MLP headquarters at Mile End, where he has his own office.
High-level union sources confirmed with MaltaToday that Pellegrini is still on the union’s payroll, where he was previously a section secretary. And more interestingly he was appointed by Jason Micallef as his assistant and given a spacious room with full office facilities. During the last national election he accompanied Jason Micallef everywhere.
The loud and abrasive Pellegrini serves as Micallef’s personal secretary, although his position does not enjoy the approval of the national executive. He is highly unpopular in the Labour party because of his far from elegant style.
Strangely, One Productions, Labour’s media company, also took on board the union man to represent management in negotiations over a collective agreement with the General Workers’ Union some three years ago.
One Productions’ chairman Joe Vella Haber told MaltaToday that Pellegrini was never on the company’s payroll in the past four years, but did not deny Pellegrini’s role in representing the company’s interests to renegotiate wages at One TV.
Pellegrini had been at the forefront of a petition for an early change in the Labour administration back in June 2003, along with former Speaker of the House Miriam Spiteri Debono.
The petition moved by Pellegrini and Spiteri Debono called for fresh elections for the MLP executive committee to be held before the original January 2004 date.
Among Pellegrini’s initiatives was that of erecting a statue to the memory of the controversial and notorious Labour minister Lorry Sant, even though many in the party did not agree with the idea at the time.