Following the reassignment of duties and the consequent increase in salary scale for non-professional grades that was carried out over the last few years, a call for applications for numerous management posts has been circulated internally within the corporation, the union said in a statement.

The EPOU cannot accept that, notwithstanding the fact that the members of a committee to discuss job description and progression for employees who are represented by the EPOU were nominated over a year ago, the committee has never met to address the issues involved.

The union objected strongly to the fact that the circulars for the call for applications for the management posts did not specify the salary scale of the posts. As Enemalta is a public corporation with a defined salary scale structure, such circulars invariably contain the salary scale and the actual salary of the post that is being offered.

Moreover, one would have expected candidates to be required to have a proven track record, and a minimum of five years experience in a management position. Both these requirements were sadly lacking in the calls for application, the union added.

The EPOU had already objected to a proposal by management to issue a call for applications for a professional IT related post without requiring the two years experience that is stipulated in the collective agreement between Enemalta Corporation and the EPOU. It now appears that the Corporation has bypassed the union completely, and intends to offer the post of manager to newly graduated professionals in an effort to persuade them to remain with Enemalta Corporation, the union said.

This tactic is supported by the fact that the responsibilities of the advertised posts are those of a project manager, rather than the traditional responsibility of a manager for a number of staff within various sections.

If this is the case, the EPOU insisted that similar calls for application are also issued in the engineering division. The projects that are executed in this division are at least of comparable scale and importance to those undertaken by the IT section, but are managed by engineers who, notwithstanding the extensive experience and expertise they have gained through many years of loyal service to the corporation, have still not been given the opportunity for progression to management grades.

Enemalta Corporation seems to be forgetting that the core business of the corporation is the provision of a safe and reliable electricity supply, the union said. There is no doubt that it is only by having suitably motivated engineers who manage the daily running of the generation, transmission and distribution systems, that the ambitious changes envisaged by Enemalta Corporation are going to be implemented successfully.

The EPOU cannot accept the excuse given by Enemalta Corporation that IT graduates are in short supply and great demand, and should therefore be given preferential treatment over engineering graduates. The conditions of work and low salaries at Enemalta Corporation are persuading first class newly graduated engineers who wish to follow a career in power engineering to turn away and seek posts within industry that offer much better prospects. One cannot exclude the possibility that engineers currently employed with Enemalta will also be enticed to leave the Corporation for posts in the private sector, taking with them valuable experience and the training that has been invested in them.