When it transpired that ST Microelectronics was going to cut 3,000 jobs from its factories worldwide the alarm bells started ringing in Malta.

ST Microelectronics plays a major role in the Maltese economy. The factory employs 2,400 workers, which is roughly 1.6 per cent of Malta’s gainfully occupied persons. Its portion of the export market is more than half of what the whole country sells abroad, at nearly 53 per cent. On its own, the company’s share of the Gross Domestic Product is four per cent.

All these figures show the extent of ST Microelectronics’ importance to Malta’s economy. Our preoccupation on the company’s future when it became known that the parent firm will be downsizing its operations is therefore justified.

So far, it has been made known that 1,150 jobs will be lost in Italy, 1,000 in France, while another 700 jobs will be lost in Morocco and the United States. This would leave another 150 jobs that are “unaccounted for”, in the sense that it is not yet known where they will be lost from. Some of them therefore could be lost in Malta.

At a press conference held in front of the ST Micro offices in Kirkop last Thursday, the General Workers’ Union said that the where these 150 jobs will be lost from will be announced during the coming European Works Council on 5 July.

Until that fateful day, the local workforce at ST Microelectronics will be on tenterhooks, hoping that they will not be hit.

Yet any jobs lost at Kirkop will have more implications than just for the workers who will find themselves unemployed. Considering the company’s worth for the Maltese economy, any job losses at ST Micro will be yet another blow to the country’s confidence.

The GWU thought it fit to express its preoccupation by calling the media to state its views. It was the union’s way of showing solidarity with the workers and to try to exert some form of pressure on the parent company not to include Malta in its downsizing exercise in Europe and the US. The union’s role is, after all, to defend the workers.

Last Thursday’s press conference was however interpreted by two employer bodies, the Malta Employers’ Association and the Federation of Industry, as not being the right way to tackle the matter. The MEA said that such “demonstrations can cause a sense of alarm that in itself can precipitate events for the worse” while the FOI advised the GWU and the workers “against creating any crisis and uncertainty”.

Yet, with or without the GWU’s press conference, the “alarm” and the “crisis” because of ST’s decision are there.

The MEA and FOI then both spoke about the deteriorating competitiveness of the country, with the FOI accusing the unions of “not finding enough courage to give their consent for the implementation of some bold measures that would have given industry a fresh impetus”.

While agreeing that a social pact – had it been agreed to last January – would have helped to push Malta forward, it must be pointed out that, in this particular case, the GWU was only voicing the concern that has gripped all those who have Malta at heart following ST’s decision to cut jobs in Europe and the US to move to Asia.

The GWU’s press conference, seen in the light of the figures mentioned earlier, made sense because through it the union wanted to exert some cautious pressure on the parent company not to include Malta in its downsizing exercise.

Of course, the GWU and other unions could have taken a different line last January when the social pact was being discussed but, even if this had been agreed to, ST’s decision to cut 3,000 jobs in Europe and the US would still have been taken.