Probably most people in Malta are against taking away the possibility of an opt-out from the EU Working Time Directive, which limits overtime to an average of eight hours per week over a one-year period. The government is positioning itself as the champion of workers, solemnly declaring that it will defend workers’ interests.

What is not said is that it is actually because of the dire economic situation that Maltese workers need to work overtime. They need to supplement their meagre incomes just to keep up with the cost of living, to pay debts they took out to pay for exorbitant house prices and to simply get along from day to day.

Who would not prefer to spend more time pursuing leisure activities, spending time with friends and family, taking part in community and voluntary work and activities? The fact that most workers want to work for more than an extra day a week (more than an extra eight hours) is testimony to a lack of planning and direction on the government’s part. Workers are not grateful to the government for “fighting” for them to work longer hours, they want a better quality of life, not a 50-hour or 60-hour working week!

Given the present situation, Alternattiva Demokratika’s position is that the opt-out clause should be retained. However, the government should negotiate a 10-year period during which it strives to improve the economic situation, following which Malta can become the modern state it deserves to be and guarantee a decent life for its citizens and adopt the proposed Working Time Directive in its totality.

Overtime work needs to be looked at from various perspectives. It is comfortable for some irresponsible employers to keep wages low and squeeze out more productivity on overtime, only when needed. I repeat, only irresponsible employers, and I would say short-sighted ones too, follow this strategy in this day and age where the market demands high quality products or services produced by a highly motivated workforce.

Another issue which needs to be looked at are ways and means of increasing the workforce. Let us for a moment assume that five workers in a particular organisation are each working eight extra hours a week, over and above 48 hours, and are doing so regularly, week-in, week-out. All this means is that in actual fact this organisation has enough work to employ an additional full-time worker. To put it bluntly, an unemployed person is being cheated out of a work opportunity and a chance to be trained in a particular trade. Anyhow, many workers in Malta take on part-time employment beyond the maximum 48-hour limit; removing the opt-out does not prohibit workers from doing this.

There are also thousands of non-manual workers, employees with normal salaries, who are often labelled “professionals” and are expected to do overtime work without being paid for it. These employees, most of the time, have no choice but to grin and bear. These people are often forgotten, no one speaks up for them because they are considered better-off than other workers. The fact is that workers entitled to overtime pay usually get a take home pay surpassing their colleagues’, even though the latter often have to put in extra hours just because, unfortunately, being physically present at work is perceived to be critical to one’s success.

This country badly needs real and engaging debate followed by action about our economic direction, instead of the incompetence of a government which literally burns money on unfinished and useless projects such as the Gozo ferry terminal in Mgarr (Lm14 million down the drain); which buys an expensive embassy in Brussels (at least Lm 9 million), when larger countries managed to spend much less; which manages to overspend tremendously on a white elephant project called “Mater Dei” Hospital.

The list of waste and incompetence is long, far too long.

A Nationalist MEP recently wrote that “In Malta workers are often constrained to work longer hours to supplement their income”. This is surely not something to be proud of. Yes, Malta still needs the opt-out clause, unfortunately for us all.

Ralph Cassar BSc, MBA is an Executive Committee member and International Secretary of Alternattiva Demokratika. He has worked in the manufacturing industry for over eight years.

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