Your editorial The GWU and the UHM (TMID, 19 January), tried to bring out and emphasise the differences in principles and policies between the two unions and their secretary-generals.

Firstly, may I point out that your interpretation of the GWU’s militancy is incorrect in that the GWU has always stressed, be it with private or public entities, that the table of negotiations remains the priority. However, when this process fails, then militancy comes in. No trade union can go on with endless negotiations and discussions that lead nowhere.

The GWU secretary-general has never stated that a trade union has to be a militant one to be effective. He has insisted that it is inevitable for a trade union worth its salt to be militant, as no one will give the workers their rights and dues on a silver plate. Thus, the meaning of the GWU’s militancy can only be interpreted in this context. The GWU’s militancy denotes that it will always be in front of and not behind the workers, and that it will do its utmost to lead the workers to reach their aspirations.

Taking people on to the streets in protest is just one aspect of trade unionism. Street protests do not take place only in Malta. They are common and frequently resorted to by major trade unions and workers’ federations throughout Europe, with the last example happening in Strasbourg last Monday. So I cannot

understand why there is all this ado when the GWU takes the workers on to the streets in peaceful protests.

One other point in which you were also incorrect in your editorial is the reference you made to the revision of tax bands, saying that such a proposal originated solely from Union Haddiema Maqghudin. This interpretation is a sheer twisting of the truth and a distortion of history.

The GWU was the one and only trade union to demand from the government a tax-band revision soon after the surcharge on water and electricity bills was imposed. The GWU went even further to suggest, even at MCESD level, the mechanism by which this revision could be carried out in order to ease the social burdens that workers and pensioners were to be saddled with. The GWU’s proposal was based on the principle of social justice in that the weakest in society would be aided the most.

Surely in this, and with its proposal, the GWU was ahead of the UHM. The GWU also stresses the fact that the government is duty bound to collect taxes that are still in arrears as the existence of such a situation is unjust, immoral and unacceptable, considering that the workers pay their tax dues to the last cent.

Charles Vella, Media & Information Executive, GWU