Matthew Vella
Alternattiva Demokratika has written to European Commissioner for employment and social affairs Vladimir Spidla to investigate a breach by the Maltese government of a Council Directive on the safeguarding of employees’ rights, with respect to the privatisation of the Malta Shipyards.
AD has told Spidla that the Maltese government’s call for expression of interest in the Malta Shipyards appears to be “in breach of both the wording and the spirit of Council Directive 2001/23EC (Council Directive on the approximation of laws of the member states relating to the safeguarding of employees' rights in the event of transfers of undertakings, businesses or parts of undertakings or businesses) which does not exempt interested parties from taking up the existing workforce should the transfer of business take place.”
AD was referring to the government’s decision to downsize the workforce at the shipyards in the next month from 1,600 to 700 through early retirement schemes, in anticipation of privatisation.
“Though Maltese Minister of Finance Tonio Fenech has hinted that he has commissioned a report, hitherto unpublished, unfortunately no scientific studies have been made public by the Maltese government to identify the areas of specialisation which have to be reduced, nor to justify the amount of 900 workers that would have to be downsized,” secretary-general Victor Galea wrote in his letter to Spidla.
“Our party… is of the opinion that this is being done by the Maltese government in order to circumvent its social obligations arising out of EU Directive 2001/23EC. In fact, section 38 (1) of the Employment and Industrial Relations Act transposing the EU Directive into Maltese law protects the employment of those employed in an undertaking which is subject to a transfer of ownership or business.”