General Workers’ Union public sector section secretary Josephine Attard Sultana yesterday filed for a prohibitory injunction against union secretary-general Tony Zarb in connection with the convening of an extraordinary general conference.
Ms Attard Sultana is objecting to a motion put forward to have her removed as section secretary through the general conference, which is scheduled for Monday.
Mr Zarb called the conference after being presented with a petition from 39 GWU members in the public sector section in which they had stated that they could not tolerate the way in which the section was being run and they wanted Ms Attard Sultana to be replaced.
In the application for the injunction, Ms Attard Sultana requested the court to prevent the GWU from calling such a conference. She said that, according to the union’s statute, the GWU administration had no right to call an extraordinary conference.
She said that the statute stipulates that any such conference can only be called with the approval of not less than 40 per cent of section delegates or the section’s executive committee. She also stressed that, according to the statute, “issues that affect only one section are to be addressed by the executive committee. If the executive committee cannot address the problem, the matter should be referred to the central administration and if that bears no fruit, it should be put to the national council”.
In the application, Ms Attard Sultana quoted from a report on the matter compiled by an ad hoc committee, that stated that the required quota had not been reached.
The ad hoc committee established that two of the signatories to the petition were not delegates and also expressed its doubts that the actual signatures were put onto paper voluntarily.
The committee also pointed out that nine delegates had withdrawn their signature, with the result that only 36.4 per cent of all section delegates had signed the petition, meaning that the quota had not been met. The committee said that the petition did not satisfy the union’s regulations and constitution.
In conclusion, the application pointed out that Ms Attard Sultana’s trade union career, which was her only source of income, was at stake.
Dr George Abela filed the application in the court registry. Meanwhile, after presenting the injunction, Ms Attard Sultana made a short comment to the press, saying: “I filed for this prohibitory injunction to safeguard the best interests of the public sector section within the GWU.”