A number of Air Malta unions have spoken with the Malta Independent, and were asked about their collective agreement discussions following the Alitalia talks breakdown.

Cabin Crew Union Chief Noel Mercieca believes that the collective agreement should be sorted out before a new strategic partner is found.

The Cabin-Crew chief said: “the minister (Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis) during his meeting with the unions last week, told us that the Alitalia talks ended, but also said that work on the collective agreements will soon begin.”

“If there are problems in the old agreement that needs to change to create flexibility, they should be addressed beforehand. The main problems in our old collective agreement revolve around flexibility. We have already agreed, in principle, that these points regarding flexibility will change. I have no idea what is stopping them from going ahead with the collective agreement.

“This would be better for them. I cannot let them breach a collective agreement even if there are things which don’t make much sense now. They would have made sense back in 2010, but now seven years have passed and things change. The airline industry is what it is. We are ready to discuss and be more flexible,” he said.

This newsroom also contacted General Workers Union  General Secretary Josef Bugeja. He said that he wants to continue talks with government regarding the collective agreement and other pending issues. He said that the GWU holds talks with Air Malta regularly, “but we are saying that discussions regarding the collective agreement should continue”.

He said that he believes Air Malta workers should receive a salary increase, but one would need to see the overall scenario. “This is part of the negotiation which will take place and I believe the collective agreement should be renewed.”

“From our end we will push to discuss the collective agreement and all other pending issues, but we need to see the government’s position, whether it wants a strategic partner to be involved first etc. There are certain issues such as work practices, that we believe can be tackled. We are ready to go and we would like to continue these discussions.”

There was also talk about the ground handlers being put into a separate company, and Mr Bugeja said that one now needs to see if such a plan will still go through. “It has not yet been done, but we know that the direction was to remove ground handling from Air Malta, and put those workers into a government controlled company. If government is still of that mind, we do not know.”

He added that the national airline now needs to find a strong strategic partner that can guarantee a future for the company, while offering job security to its hundreds of workers.

Airline Pilots Association Secretary John de Carlo said that his union’s priority is to be better informed about what is going on and what the way forward is. He explained that there was no meeting with ALPA between August and the recent meeting where the end of the Alitalia-Airmalta talks was announced.

Air Malta and the association representing its pilots reached an agreement last August, which was not the new collective agreement. The idea back then, he said, was that nothing could be decided while negotiations were still ongoing with the strategic partner.

In a statement back then, the government had said the two parties reached an accord that safeguards the interests of the government as the main shareholder of the airline, the interests of the pilots and company’s future. This statement was similar to that published when an agreement was reached with the Cabin Crew Union roughly around the same time.

“The idea back in August was that as soon as the issues with the strategic partner are finalised then we would again speak.” He said that the only thing that changed since then was that the strategic partner talks have ended and everything else is still the same.

He stressed there was no official communication between August and last week. “We’ve heard a lot of things these past months, such as reducing routes etc. and we wish to be better informed and to know the way forward”.

Asked whether his union prefers starting discussions regarding the collective agreement now or waiting, he said “We are waiting to see what they say and then take decisions.  As things stand now, one cannot say what will or won’t happen. We are waiting to see what the company has in its mind. The last thing we heard from the company and government was that the Alitalia deal ended. The minute they tell us something we are ready to sit down and talk”.

“At this stage we are ready to meet and we want to meet to discuss a way forward. At the end of the day the first thing we want to know is what the situation is, even as it is our duty to pass on what we know to our members whom we represent.”

The old collective agreement is still valid, even though its expired, he said, adding that “there is also the August agreement, and we are waiting for them to call us to continue discussions.”