In an unprecedented mass disciplinary action, the management of Malta Shipyards has sent written warnings to 385 employees who walked out of a shift on Saturday 17 June. Similar actions in the future can lead to dismissal, according to the Shipyard’s Collective Agreement, Shipyard sources warned.

On Saturday June 17 shipyard workers who had reported for overtime work, having been requested by management to do so and accepted, walked out without starting or completing the work they had been assigned.

The 385 workers were issued with a written warning on the instructions of the Shipyards’ management. The written warning is for a breach of the shipyards disciplinary code, “Clause 51 – Failure to attend overtime duties without a valid reason acceptable to management after accepting to work it”.

The employees received the written warnings this week and also found out that they will not be paid for the part of the shift that they actually worked on the day before they downed tools. The written warning will be placed on the employees’ personnel record. It is believed that a future unauthorised stoppage, which is essentially an unofficial industrial action, can lead to penalties including dismissal.

The management of the Shipyards decided to take these disciplinary actions because unofficial stoppages such as those of Saturday 17 have a direct impact on the yard’s capability to deliver projects on time, apart from the reputation damage they cause.

Especially at this time, when the management of the shipyard is making an all out effort to improve the productivity of the yard, a problem compounded by the short-sighted attitudes still held by some workers and supervisors, the shipyard sources said.

The shipyard is going through a particularly busy period at the moment, with its order book full and the prospects for 2007 looking good, and these stoppages are the last thing the company wants, in its difficult march from being a drain on public funds to a viable and competitive employer.

Government sources told this newspaper that the government, the board and management have mapped out a viable way forward for the yards, which is already reaping the dividends, due to the impressive order book secured by the company. This cautious optimism contrasts starkly with the unilateral unofficial stoppage perpetrated two weeks ago.

The sources added that “in a time when countries are striving to gain a competitive edge over each other, there is certainly no room for the proliferation of this kind of attitude. Moreover, while the government and social partners are relentlessly re-inventing themselves to enhance our competitiveness and foster our economic growth, in the yards we still have elements that are ready to put aside the impressive order book which is being put together, merely to impose their out-dated way of doing things.”

“The end of the line is now in sight. The taxpayers have paid over Lm300 million for the inefficiencies in the yards and counting. By 2008, the taxpayers will draw the line; and by then the Malta Shipyards Co. Ltd should be in a position, not to lose any more money,” the sources concluded.