One such group is the shore foremen.

Although the law, the Port Ordnance of colonial times, still in force, states that only those licensed by the Director of Ports (such as they are) can work in all the harbours of Malta and Gozo, these have been regularly barred from doing any work at the Freeport. Nevertheless, they still get paid by the importers for any work handled at the Freeport.

The group of shore foremen was formed the 1962 Ordnance and the Port Workers Scheme regularised the work done in harbours.

In 1966 when the Deep Water Quay started operating, the foremen split into shore foremen and ship foremen.

Thereafter, the shore foremen got together as a group and over the years this system was accepted.

But when the Freeport was set up and began its operations, although the shore foremen should have enjoyed the right to work at the Freeport, the Freeport management concluded an agreement with just one such foreman, a Victor Spiteri known as Karettuni.

Through this contract Mr Spiteri has been ever since operating all the ships tying up at the Freeport while the other foremen, when it concerns cargo destined for Malta and not in transit (although they contest this as well), get paid by the importers but are not allowed to do any work in the Freeport.

The contract stipulated between the Freeport and Mr Spiteri has remained a secret ever since and even high officials connected with the Freeport, or even employed by it, have been alleged to say they never saw a copy of this contract.

This means that importers pay double the duties for any importation they do. They pay Mr Spiteri as the shore foreman who handles the operation, but they also pay the shore foremen for work these do not do.

The shore foremen have long been battling to overcome this ban, but they have run against a brick wall. Now, with the privatisation of the Freeport imminent and with the Cargo Handling contract running out in two years’ time, they are very concerned men.

Some years ago, rumours said that they had been approached to work at the Freeport but had ‘refused’. To counteract this, on 14 September 1998, all the shore foremen, all 26 of them, sighed a declaration addressed to Ronnie Pellegrini, then section secretary of GWU, denying they had ever been asked by the Freeport whether they wanted to work in it.

On 27 January 2004, the foremen wrote to the freeport’s chairman asking for a meeting.

On 2 February, Freeport director and company secretary Stanley Portelli, wrote back there was no need for any such meeting for these shore foremen had never worked at the Freeport and the freeport had never asked for their services. “The foreman service for all the port workers’ operations at the Freeport is carried out contractually,” Mr Portelli said.

The foremen wrote again on 4 February to the chairman pointing out that according to the law, the shore foremen should be doing this work. The rules must be obeyed, he said, especially by a State entity.

Having received no reply from the chairman, on 27 April they wrote to the Prime Minister with copies to ministers Austin Gatt, Censu Galea, the chairman of the Freeport, of the Malta Maritime Authority, and the secretaries general of GWU and UHM.

The foremen explained that according to law, the shore formen’s duties include:

Co-ordinating work while a ship is being loaded or unloaded

Supervision of port workers

Supervision of management of cargo, and

Provision of the necessary equipment.

They said the decision to give all work to one contractor was “a strange decision” and the contract has remained secret as if it were a military secret when it costs the freeport and the people of Malta hundreds of thousands of liri. While the shore foremen get paid by the importers, the contractor seems to be getting paid by the Maltese people’s taxes.

Furthermore, they told the prime minister that they were more than eager to see a reform of port work come in, and that this reform should be binding for all ports in Malta including the freeport.

But despite the shore foremen’s willingness and flexibility, they went on, it seems that at the Freeport there are those who think otherwise and who is trying to hurry up things so that the shore foremen are for ever bared from doing the work which is theirs. As times goes by, work at the Grand Harbour is decreasing while work at the Freeport is increasing.

The foremen told Dr Gonzi that one of them has heard that the privatisation of the Freeport is now being speeded up so that when the Cargo Handling contract runs out in two years’ time, Cargo Handling is squeezed out of the Freeport as well as the Shore Foremen Group and whoever enjoys the contract, will enjoy it even more then.

Finally they reminded Dr Gonzi of a meeting he had (when deputy prime minister) with the shore foremen along with Dr Joe Zammit Maempel and Emanuel Micallef, GWU deputy secretary general.

On 30 June the foremen again wrote to the prime minister. Of the six persons who had received a copy of his 27 April letter, only Dr Austin Gatt had sent in an acknowledgement.

This silence, the foremen said, is very worrying. In particular, they termed the freeport’s attitude as ‘scandalous’. They expected it to deny what they had claimed in their 27 April letter and they had also expected it to reveal the terms of the contract in question so that everyone could see that ‘it is not true that the freeport is paying the contractor for a service that is being paid by the importers to the shore foremen’. They had also expected the Freeport to reveal how the contractor had been chosen and what had been done to ensure that the country’s financial regulations that all public corporations should obey in any decision they make have been in fact obeyed.

On 29 July, the foremen wrote to the Auditor General and claimed that their information is that the contract was awarded without the financial procedures applicable to government entities being observed, that the contract has been renewed, that through this contract the Freeport is paying through taxpayers’ funds for work for which the importers have already been paying to them; and that the Freeport is refusing to allow them to carry out their work, as by law they have every right to.

On the same day, the foremen wrote to the chairman of the Malta Maritime Authority, Marc Bonello and claimed abuse on the part of the Freeport. They claimed that the Malta Freeport Corporation has issued passes for the freeport to persons who, they claimed, do not have a right to them. A pass has been issued to a certain person claiming he is a Port Work Scheme foreman when this person does not form part of the Port Work Scheme nor does he have a foreman’s licence. On the other hand, the Freeport did issue passes to the shore foremen but the passes do not state they are foremen.

On 6 August the foremen wrote to minister Censu Galea and claimed that there is pressure being exerted so that two people are awarded the foremen licence when they do not have this licence.

On the same day they informed minister Austin Gatt about allegations that the Malta Freeport Terminal/Malta Freeport Corporation has employed a person who previously used to be employed by the contractor. Now that he is employed by the freeport, the foremen added, and being paid by the Freeport, he is still working for the contractor during work hours, work which is being paid for by the people of Malta while the shore foremen are being paid for the same work.

This person, the foremen alleged, was employed by the freeport at a time when the government was committed that no recruitment could be made with the Freeport and the people of Malta was under the impression that the Freeport was not recruiting people. The foremen asked for an investigation.

The shore foremen also make the following points to further substantiate their position:

On 11 October 2001 the chairman of the Privatisation Unit Emmanuel Ellul, and the then GWU section secretary Emanuel Micallef called a meeting for the shore foremen referring to them as ‘indirect workers’ to try and ensure their position would be undisturbed in the future.

In the 2003 document Prosperity in Change – the Way Forward by the Ministry for Economic Services, a table displays the costs of bringing a container to Malta. One of items costed is that relating to shore foremen, so they were then acknowledged to be part of the freeport’s set-up.

All the GWU collective agreements since the 1970s speak of foremen especially when they speak of a mixed cargo.

And in a letter by Charles Abela, deputy executive director (Ports) at MMA on 20 August 201, the ship agents and their association were informed that at a meeting held some days previously it had been agree d that the ship agents/owners shall use the services of the shore foremen group to supervise the handling of empty containers between stack and ship. The applicable tariff has been established at the rate of Lm0.25 per unit – including trailers, flat racks and containers – for domestic cargo wherever it is handled. “As agreed in our meeting held on 27 November 2000 the shore foremen shall be paid as from 1 December 2000.”

The shore foremen are members of UHM, which is understood to be monitoring the situation and has already had contacts with the Privatisation Unit.

It is also known that Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi has asked for clarifications on the various points raised in the letters.

The foremen are also asking whether it is true that Mr Pellegrini has been retained as an advisor by the Malta Freeport.

They also question why the GWU, which has a direct financial interest in Cargo Handling Co Ltd, has hitherto remained silent on this issue.

And they ask if it is true that Freeport director and company secretary Stanley Portelli has told his staff to take orders from Mr Spiteri regarding port workers.