The government and the General Workers Union continue to be on different sides of the fence on the privatisation of the Malta Shipyards.

Last ditch attempts last week to find a compromise failed and the government went ahead with the announcement of four schemes to encourage as many shipyard employees as possible to accept an early retirement in the hope of instilling greater interest from potential investors.

On the other hand, the union has not accepted the deal being proposed and has called a meeting for shipyard workers on Wednesday to explain its position.

The Malta Labour Party has taken middle ground on the issue. It has accepted that the privatisation of the yard is the better solution – the other option is complete closure – but at the same time it has argued that the government was not going about doing the job in the right way.

Its proposal to transfer shipyard workers to Industrial Projects and Services Ltd, IPSL, has been shot down by the government, which said that this would be tantamount to giving the workers employment in the public service, meaning that the money needed to subsidise the shipyards now would still need to be handed out every year. The e49 million that the government estimated for the one-off early retirement schemes would have to be paid every year if Labour’s proposal were to be accepted.

The government is seeking to reduce the number of workers – some 1,700 – by more than half, as it is only by doing so that investors will be encouraged to take over the drydocks.

The government is in a stronger position than the union. It knows that the European Union regulations will not allow the drydocks to continue to be subsidised after the end of this year. And it knows that public opinion is very much in its favour – taxpayers have been funding the drydocks’ losses for too many years.

It has also come up with early retirement schemes which can only be described as being extremely satisfactory to the workers – both those who are in their late 50s and are therefore close to retirement anyway, and also the younger workers who can take the offer and then still be in a position to re-apply to join the dockyard under a new management.

The government has made it clear that this is the last chance the workers have to make up their mind, as there will be no more time for any similar initiatives once this one closes. The number of workers must be drastically decreased before any investors will be in a position to start negotiations with the government on taking over the shipyard.

It is therefore up to the union now to convince the workers that there is no other way forward. The union’s responsibility on this issue is probably the biggest burden it has ever had to carry, as the way it will deal with it will determine the outcome of the privatisation process as well as the future of the workers that are currently employed at the shipyards.

The union must realise that it cannot act in a stubborn way and refuse to budge simply because its ideas are different from those of the government. The future of so many workers and their families are at stake, and as a union that professes to have the interest of workers at heart, it should not take risks on their behalf.

The government has played its part. It has decided to privatise the shipyard. It has offered the early retirement schemes. It has set in motion a process that seeks to save the drydocks by passing its administration onto private investors.

The ball is now in the union’s court. And that of the workers.