Anna Mallia | Wednesday, 15 April 2009

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The port workers’ saga is a storm in a teacup.
The Malta Freeport wanted to know, and rightly so, which union has the majority of employees as its members. But trade union recognition is not carried out by a poll amongst the port workers and neither is it carried out by the Registrar, by asking the port workers if they are a member of a trade union and if yes, which union. Both actions are illegal so it is safe for the Malta Freeport not to recognise any of them.
First of all, there was no need to conduct a poll to check which union has the majority of port workers on her side. Profs Ian Refalo, who is said to have been appointed to ensure the independence of this poll, knows this. This is because each union has its own registrar of membership and this could be easily ascertained by verifying with each trade union the list of its members.
Secondly, the Registrar of Trade Unions could have spared all this dilemma by inspecting the membership books of each of the two trade unions. He has a right to do this, and would have avoided all the trouble. In fact the labour regulations empower the Registrar of Trade Unions (i.e. the Director of Labour) to inspect all the records of the membership which records have to include the name, address and work of each member of the trade union and the date when the last membership fee was paid by each member.
The unions are also obliged by law to, every June, send to the Registrar of Trade Unions a declaration with the names of trade union members with all particulars, including the last payment of the membership fee, a declaration of the income and expenses of the trade union and the annual report.
For the Registrar to be unable to see which port workers belong to a trade union, means the trade unions are not sending in this annual return to the Registrar as is required by law and that on the other hand, the Registrar is not enforcing it either. As otherwise, what was the need for the Registrar to get this information from the port workers?
It also means that so far, no Registrar of Trade Unions has had the courage to inspect the records of the trade unions.
The result is that we do not trust the trade unions when they tell us their membership numbers unless it is endorsed by the Registrar.
The Malta Freeport is also partly to blame because it ought not to have allowed any ballots or polls to take place. If a worker pays their trade union membership it is that membership which certifies trade union representation. The Malta Freeport ought to have instructed the Registrar of Trade Unions to inspect the membership records of the General Workers Union and the Malta Dockers’ Union and only these records would ascertain which of the two has majority representation at the Freeport.
It is so unfair for the port workers to be roped in between two trade unions which are obviously at loggerheads with each other. The Malta Dockers Union is composed of members who were previously in the General Workers Union and port workers are the kind of members that any union would relish in having and this for obvious reasons.
In the circumstances, the Registrar of Trade Unions is wrong in concluding that the trade union which represents the majority of the port workers is the result of the verification exercise he conducted by requesting the port workers those two famous questions: (1) are you a member of a trade union? And (2) if yes, which union?
Such an exercise was frivolous and uncalled for when by law all he had to do was to go to the General Workers Union building and inspect the records of the union to see the list of port workers who are members of the union and paying members, and do the same exercise with the Malta Dockers Union. That is the role of the Registrar because union membership is not determined by a vox pop – but by seeing, black on white, the records of the trade unions.
Whatever the outcome of the vox pop carried out by the Registrar of the Trade Unions, that outcome is not according to law and the legal advisers of the registrar ought to know how membership is determined by law.
The truth of the matter is, I repeat, that nobody wants to check the records of our trade unions for fear of complete chaos.
There are many lessons that the Registrar has to learn from this saga: that from now on he has to apply the law to the letter. He has to enforce the law so that Section 58 of the Employment and Industrial Relations Act is obeyed by our trade unions and records of each trade union membership are sent to him not just by quoting the number, but by providing the list of paid up members. This is required by law and trade unions must not be treated any differently from employers and employees.
Secondly, the verification exercise is not done by asking the workers any questions but by inspecting the records of the trade unions concerned. It is not correct for the Ministry for Social Policy in its press release issued on 13 April 2009 to state that the verification exercise in the current format is a legitimate procedure and in conformity with the law as it has been carried out several time since the past with no problems as it has been carried out several times in the past with no problems and gives employees the opportunity to express themselves as regard claimed union membership.
It is not correct because the verification exercise in the current format is not according to law and if there were no problems in the past it means that no trade union wanted to open its mouth for fear that its membership records be scrutinized by the Registrar of trade unions.
So what the Registrar of Trade Unions has to do now is to inspect the records of each trade union and tell us which trade union has the highest number of paid-up members. Only this exercise is the legal and legitimate one.

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