The failure of negotiations on a social pact goes beyond the public holidays issue, which was tackled by this newspaper in yesterday’s editorial.

There is obviously more to it than workers losing a total of 15 days of leave over the next four years till 2008, when they could have been forfeiting just 10 or even less if the national agreement had been reached.

At the end, the collapse of the talks – because of the General Workers’ Union resistance – could actually mean more hardship for the workers, largely because now the government is not bound by the proposals submitted last Wednesday in a last-ditch attempt to find a solution.

For example, if a social pact had been reached, the government would have committed itself not to increase income tax and value added tax for the duration of the agreement, that is until 2008. Free from the pact, the government might choose to do so now.

The government was also prepared to bind itself to consult the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development before incurring expenses in addition to those established in the budget. The pact could have therefore stopped another Dar Malta controversy; now the government can act the way it did when it purchased the Maltese Embassy in Brussels.

The government had also proposed that idle government workers could have been reassigned elsewhere, such as to public private partnerships. Without the pact, these people will continue to do little, if anything, and still get their full salary.

Having said this, was it really wise for the government to go back to its original proposals, those submitted in the budget for 2005? Would it not have been better if the proposals – all or in part – made last Wednesday are implemented anyway?

After all, with the exception of the General Workers Union, all other MCESD members gave the go-ahead to the government to push forward.

They might have had their reservations – in fact both the employer bodies, and the Union Haddiema Maghqudin and the Confederation of Trade Unions, disagreed with some of the clauses. But they all realised that, in the interest of the country, it was better to lose something now and gain something later.

In the present scenario, that is without a national

agreement, it is the workers who stand to lose the most. And by this we do not only mean holidays.

In the words of the UHM general secretary Gejtu Vella lies the big question mark: “I still cannot understand the logic that what the government will be implementing without the pact is better than what was negotiated,” he told this newspaper.

Where do we go to from here? Has the chance of ever reaching a social pact been lost, considering that it is the second time in a matter of a few months that the social partners were so close but failed? Will there be another possibility? Will the MCESD function to the best of its abilities after all that has happened?

It is hard to say.

The General Workers Union has repeated that it is prepared to continue negotiating. But one doubts whether an agreement will eventually be reached if more time is given.

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi has said that the time that has been spent in negotiations was not wasted because the government now knows the position of the social partners better than it did before, adding, however, that “we must now move on”.

What is true is that the government gave the social partners all the time in the world to come to terms. It is often accused of not consulting before implementing changes. This time, nobody can point the finger at the government, because it left the door open not once, but twice, in a bid to find common ground.