Over the summer, the General Workers’ Union passed through one of the most turbulent times in its history, perhaps the most turbulent. Top officials were removed from their post, others resigned, while a whole group of port workers – over 300, in a section that was always one of the union’s mainstays – handed in their resignation and later formed the Malta Dockers’ Union.

Last week, different producers of different television stations seemed to want to heavily revive the issue as union officials were invited to participate on TV programmes to discuss what went on and how the union is looking at the future now that the dust has settled, if it has.

Whether union officials should have accepted the invitation to take part in the programmes is an issue in itself because, in so doing, the union allowed its dirty linen to be washed in public. The union’s central administration must have felt it was a better decision to be there and defend what there is to defend, rather than allow others to discuss the issue in its absence, considering that the programmes would have probably been held anyway.

The said programmes were not the right birthday present for a union that had, a few days earlier, celebrated its 63rd anniversary. This is because it is evidently clear that the union has not overcome the difficulties that it has experienced, and it is also apparent that it will take a while before the wounds are healed.

If ever these wounds heal, that is. And, if they do, the inevitable scars will remain, because no organisation, strong as it may be, can ever forget something as tumultuous as the GWU experienced this summer.

Something else happened last week.

The GWU organised an extraordinary national conference during which the central administration was given a vote of confidence by a show of hands.

It would have perhaps been better had the union opted for a secret vote because, in the circumstances, it was highly improbable that union delegates would have risked saying “no” openly. If a secret vote had been taken, the union would have known if any under-currents still exist. As it happened, the union now believes that it has returned to safe waters, but who really knows?

During the said conference, deputy general secretary Geitu Mercieca took the media to task for the interest it has shown in the GWU. He brandished a stack of papers which he said were 137 reports and 130 editorials that have been written about the union in the past 12 months, asking why there was so much attention in the media on the GWU.

He mentioned that other resignations have taken place in other organisations, and yet according to him, they were given little or no importance by Maltese newspapers.

For one thing, the resignations that have taken place in the GWU, not to mention the dismissal of officials, were of a different nature to what happened elsewhere. It is not often that three sections of the country’s biggest union are deeply involved in a rift with the union’s own central administration, and therefore, any media is bound to be interested in what was taking place.

Added to this, the fact that the union’s topmost position – that of general secretary – was contested for the first time a few months earlier was, of course, another matter of great interest, and was possibly the first piece of news that exposed the difference of opinions that existed in the GWU.

Last week’s TV programmes also exposed other matters which delivered a blow to the union’s structure, and one of them concerns the real number of its members. The question that is now being raised is – is the GWU as strong as it says it is?